


The Price of Mercy

by Moriens_der_Lyset



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon Universe, F/M, Friendship/Love, Rivalry Romance, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 06:41:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4294590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moriens_der_Lyset/pseuds/Moriens_der_Lyset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every day brings new challenges for Cassandra Hawke and her merry band of misfits in the City of Chains. Through comedy, tragedy, romance, and betrayal, Hawke must find a way to survive without losing sight of who she really is. Otherwise, according to Varric, it wouldn't be a very good story, now would it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first major fanfiction I've undertaken since 2012. I may be a little bit rusty, but I hope you enjoy the story of Cassandra Hawke nonetheless. The Dragon Age series has stolen my heart, and I could think of no better way to pay tribute than to dedicate even more of my life to the wonderful story we have been told.
> 
> A big thank you to my wonderful beta reader taranovae (go check out her Tumblr for even more Dragon Age-related stuff!). Feedback is always very much appreciated.
> 
> Without further ado, let the story of our hero begin.

* * *

 

 “ _The deep dark before dawn’s first light seems eternal,_

 _But know that the sun always rises._ ”

\- The Chant of Light 

 

**T  H  E     P  R  I  C  E     O  F     M  E  R  C  Y**

 

* * *

The dream always began the same way.

It was a lazy summer day in Lothering, and most of the village dozed after the midday meal, waiting until it was cool enough to continue working in the fields.

The noise was a distant rumble at first, but it grew louder with each passing second until the cacophony of screams and blades clanging was deafening. Suddenly they were running, running without a plan or direction or hope. A woman with hair like fire and her stalwart husband joined them. Together they ran and fought and ran some more. And then there was Bethany, sweet, gentle Bethany, defending their mother with her last breaths.

She never stood a chance against the ogre.

“Bethany! No!” Cassandra Hawke sat bolt upright in bed, the sound of her baby sister’s snapping bones echoing in her mind.

Across the room her mother stirred. “Cassie? What is it?”

Chest heaving, Cassandra pushed her bangs off her sweat-soaked brow and replied, “Nothing, Mother. Go back to sleep.” The other woman sighed and rolled over.

Hawke swung her legs over the edge of the cot and rested her elbows on her knees. With a groan she covered her face with her hands. It wasn’t even dawn yet and she was already wide awake. Resigned to her fate, she stood and began to dress. Donning a worn leather cuirass over her simple tunic and breeches, Cassandra crept into the main room to retrieve her boots and escape her uncle’s house for a while.

The family dog was curled up by the haphazard line of boots by the front door, and he sleepily licked Hawke’s hand as she reached for her shoes. “Morning, Ollie. Be a good boy ‘til I get back, okay?” The mabari snuffled and perked up a little as she opened the door and stepped out into the crisp morning air.

The streets of Kirkwall were silent at such an early hour, even the thieves and other ne’er-do-wells having succumbed to sleep’s embrace. Though she didn’t relish losing precious hours of sleep, the stillness was soothing in its own way.

It was hard to believe that it had been over a year since the Hawke family had arrived in the City of Chains. They must have been as bedraggled and dispirited as the slaves brought there by the Tevinter magisters in centuries long since passed. The year Cassandra and her younger brother Carver had spent in indentured servitude to the Red Iron mercenary company had taught her a great deal, however, and she felt a little less like a slave with each passing day.

Hawke let her feet carry her where they would as her mind wandered. Before long, she found herself at the docks, staring across the water at the Gallows.

An involuntary shudder made her look away. The towering building of white stone was as much a prison now as it had ever been. Hawke could almost feel the anguish of her fellow mages trapped inside.

The clanking of armor nearby brought her back to the present and she ducked into the shadows of an alleyway. Not a moment too soon, as her instinct had been right: templars, on the prowl for illegal lyrium trades and apostates. She held her breath until the noise had faded into the distance before stepping back out into the street.

Dawn was breaking on the horizon now, and Cassie thought it was high time to return to Gamlen’s house lest she run into any more of the feared mage-hunters. The last thing she wanted was a serious confrontation before breakfast.

 

* * *

 

“No! Andraste’s tits, human! You know how many people want to hire onto this expedition?”

After her incredibly early start that morning, Cassie’s patience was beginning to wear thin. This Bartrand was as stubborn as dwarves come, and even as much as Carver and she pleaded with him, he refused to even consider letting the two Ferelden refugees join his upcoming Deep Roads expedition.

After a final, resounding “no” from the dwarf, Carver and Cassandra turned to head home with resigned sighs.

“Well, I guess it’s back to waiting for someone to turn us in,” Carver grumbled, kicking at a stray pebble.

Cassandra gave him a sharp look. “Oh, don’t worry, the Templars dogging us are ‘mine’ after all,” she spat, recalling a comment he had made previously.

Her brother looked at her, appalled. “Maker, do I sound that bad? I’m turning into Gamlen!”

Suddenly a redheaded youth slammed into Hawke, sending her stumbling into a nearby wall with an indignant cry. As the pickpocket tried to round a corner, a crossbow bolt sprouted from his chest and pinned him to the wall behind him. A dwarf wearing a colorful leather duster and wielding a beautifully crafted crossbow stepped into view.

“I knew a guy once who could take every coin out of your pockets just by smiling at you,” the blonde dwarf scoffed. “But you? You don’t even have the style to work Hightown, let alone the Merchants Guild. Might want to find yourself a new line of work.” In one swift movement he grabbed Hawke’s coin purse, wrenched the bolt out of the youth’s shoulder, and then punched him in the face so hard he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. With a grin, he tossed the small bag to Hawke, who deftly caught it.

“How do you do? Varric Tethras, at your service!” He gave them a short bow. “I apologize for Bartrand. He wouldn’t know an opportunity if it hit him square in the jaw.”

Cassandra glanced at her brother with a smirk. “It nearly did.” Carver had come dangerously close to slugging the obstinate dwarf more than once.

The newcomer laughed approvingly. “Now that’s the kind of spirit we’re going to need on this little trip of ours! My brother might be too proud to admit it, but I, however, am quite practical.”

Cassandra and Carver exchanged a glance. “You seem awfully eager to go out of you way just to hire more guards.”

“We don’t need more guards,” Varric admitted, “we need a partner. Bartrand doesn’t have the gold to fund this on his own, but with outside help…”

“How much?” Carver asked quickly, tiring of his chattering.

“Fifty sovereigns. With me to vouch for you, he can’t refuse.”

The Hawke siblings balked at the amount. Between their whole family, they might be able to scrape up five, but fifty whole sovereigns? Not a chance.

“Think of it as an investment,” said Varric. “You put fifty into the pot, you could get that back tenfold when this is all over.”

Carver spoke up again. “Well, the dwarf makes some sense. No offense. But it’s certainly better than ending up in the Gallows.”

“There’s always work to be found in Kirkwall. I’m sure you’ll have the gold in no time,” Varric extended a hand to Cassandra. “So, deal?”

Cassie grinned and shrugged. “It’s not like I had anything better planned.” She took his hand, and so began a new chapter in the lives of the Hawke family.

 

* * *

 

The next morning saw the Hawke siblings paying a visit to Aveline, the woman who had managed to flee to Kirkwall with them a year ago. In the months since, she had landed a job with the city guard and seemed as content as a recently widowed woman could be.

The guardswoman informed them of a potential ambush set up by some highwaymen on Sundermount, and Hawke jumped at the opportunity as soon as the words “compensated for your assistance” were spoken. The three of them agreed to meet just outside the city around mid-afternoon, and then Carver and Cassandra trekked back to Lowtown to gear up for the impending fight.

They found their mother and their uncle Gamlen in a heated argument about the contents of their late father’s will.

“…they should be nobility!” Leandra Hawke gestured to her children as they entered the house.

Gamlen scowled. “If wishes were poppies, we’d all be dreaming.”

“Mother, Uncle, please. Fighting isn’t going to get the old house back,” Cassandra stepped in between the two of them. “Surely we could look at the will to see who really had the rights to the Amell fortune and estate?”

“The bloody thing is still locked up on the estate,” her stingy uncle sneered. “It’s out of my hands now.”

“What daft bastard leaves that behind?” Carver muttered, nearly making his sister burst into laughter.

Then Cassandra glared at her uncle, suddenly serious again. “Who owns the estate now?”

“No one you would know,” Gamlen’s voice was tinged with disgust. “Get used to Lowtown.” He stormed out of the room and slammed the bedroom door behind him.

Leandra sighed and fished a small object out of her apron pocket. She pressed it into Cassie’s hand and murmured, “The cellars of that house went all the way down to the Undercity in Darktown. This should open the door, if you can find it. Just please… be safe, will you?” She too retreated to her room, and left the two siblings staring at the ornate key their mother had given them.

Carver finally broke the silence. “Maker, what a mess.”

“Cheer up, Carver! We might be able to find you fame and fortune yet.”

He laughed humorlessly. “The once-mighty Amells? A bunch of slavers are squatting on that dusty glory.”

Cassandra’s mouth fell open. “How could you possibly-“

“Uncle’s a chatty drunk,” Carver explained quickly. “Lost one too many card games and had to sign the whole estate over. Now it’s a slave highway from the Undercity. That’s the family legacy.”

Hawke turned her back on him and walked over to the desk, grasping the back of the chair until her knuckles turned white. Her ancestral home, a haven for slavers? She couldn’t let that go on.

“Carver, get your sword. I have a sudden urge to kill something, and thankfully Aveline has a nice band of highwaymen waiting for us.”

 

* * *

 

Several hours later saw a much calmer Hawke and her brother congratulating Aveline on her new position as captain of the guard.

The three of them had dealt with the highwaymen quickly enough to return to the city and save another guard, Donnic, from certain death at the hands of the infamous Coterie thugs. It was revealed that the previous guard captain had been taking bribes to look the other way when the Coterie members did anything shady or otherwise illegal. Needless to say, Jeven would be spending quite a lot of time in prison.

Hawke stayed behind after Carver headed home in order to visit with her redheaded friend for a while.

Aveline sunk down into the chair behind her new desk, the exhaustion from that day’s events finally hitting her. She reverently touched the gold band she wore on a chain around her neck and murmured, “Thank you, Wesley.”

Hawke was silent for several moments, not having expected that to happen. “That you keep his memory speaks well of him,” she finally said, cautious of her tone.

Aveline looked up at her, pain clouding her eyes. “What I keep is that final moment. Having to kill your husbands, even for mercy’s sake, is no easy thing to work past. But I won’t let anyone else down like that again.”

Cassandra smiled sadly and walked over to take her friend’s hand. “I know. I look forward to working with you, Guard-Captain Aveline.”

“Thank you for helping me get here, Hawke,” She smiled back. “It’s where I should be.”

 

* * *

 

It seemed to Hawke that her little band of strange friends was growing almost by the day. Working off a tip from Varric, she and her brother had gone in search of the Ferelden Grey Warden that was said to be somewhere in the city, as they sorely needed his knowledge of the Deep Roads in order to successfully undertake their expedition. Lirene, the owner of a Fereldan import store, eventually gave up his location after Cassandra assured her that she would never turn in a fellow apostate without reason.

“Why does it always have to be Darktown?” Carver muttered as they descended into the Undercity. “It’s like the world is always trying to get us robbed and killed.”

Varric, who had tagged along out of curiosity, shook his head. “Being afraid of the dark isn’t going to get you very far in life, Junior. The Deep Roads are particularly dark and scary this time of year, I hear.”

“Oh, shut up,” Cassie replied absentmindedly, scanning the dimly lit tunnel ahead of them. “Wait, there it is!”

Upon entering the healer’s clinic, Anders had immediately gone on the offensive and Hawke barely had time to whip out her staff and block his swing before the bladed end smashed into her brother’s head.

“Please! We mean you no harm!”

“We’re just looking for information,” Varric added. “Rumor has it you were a Warden once. Do you know a way into the Deep Roads?”

Anders' eyes narrowed. “Did the Wardens send you to bring me back? Well I’m not going. Those bastards made me get rid of my cat.”

Hawke stared at him in confusion. “Your… cat?”

“Ser Pounce-A-Lot. He hated the Deep Roads. He was a gift, a noble beast, but the blighted Wardens thought he ‘made me soft’ so a friend in Amaranthine took him in.”

The look on his face told Cassie that this man wasn’t going to shut up about his damned cat if she let him keep talking, so she quickly launched into negotiations for whatever information he could give about the Deep Roads. Eventually a deal was struck: in exchange for a map of the underground tunnels that Anders still had from his time as a Warden, Cassandra and her companions would help him rescue a friend from the claws of the Kirkwall Circle of Magi that night.

“Do you have a death wish?” Carver turned on his sister as soon as they were outside the clinic. “We’ve been running from the bloody templars for a year and now you want to steal a Circle mage right out from under their noses? It’s suicide!”

“If you don’t like it, you can stay home with Mother,” Cassandra snapped. “At least help me search Darktown for the door to the Amell mansion’s cellars first.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

 

* * *

 

It was with a heavy heart that Cassandra Hawke led her band of companions to the Chantry. She and Carver had found their grandfather’s will in the vault of the Amells’ ancestral home, and Gamlen’s treachery had been revealed. Everything had been left to their mother: the mansion, the fortune, and even down to the fine tableware that had been packed away in dust-covered boxes.

 _They should be nobility_ , Leandra’s words echoed in her mind. Anders was saying something to them as they slid silently through the streets of Hightown, but she was too preoccupied to care. She was going to get her mother’s birthright back if it meant camping out in front of the Viscount’s door for a month.

“Hawke!” Varric’s unusually sharp tone jarred her back to reality.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “What?”

“Have you been listening to a word we’ve said?” Her expression gave him the answer. “Anders was just explaining that the rest of us should hang back when we find his friend, so we don’t startle him. Just let him do the talking, and have a spell ready if the templars decide to show up.”

“All right,” Cassie looked forwards again and found herself staring into the enormous polished wooden doors of the Kirkwall Chantry. Carver, who had decided to come along after much convincing, stepped forwards and pushed the door open just enough to allow them through. The group followed behind Anders, weapons at the ready.

They found Karl on the second floor, staring out one of the windows into the night. His back was turned, but Anders immediately recognized his friend and stepped into the light of the torches fixed to the wall. “I knew you would never give up,” he said, his voice oddly monotone. “But I was too rebellious. And they made me an example.”

Cassandra felt her heart falter as he turned around, the bright orange sunburst on his forehead burning like a warning beacon. “They made you Tranquil,” she whispered.

“No!” Anders’ voice erupted in a pained cry. “ _NO!_ ”

“The Templar will teach you to control yourself,” Karl said flatly, unaffected by his former friend’s agony.

The clanking of armor behind them made Anders whip around to face them, and before anyone could say a word his entire body began to glow as if there was a white-hot fire burning inside of him. “ _You will never take another mage as you took him!_ ”

And then it was chaos, blades and spells flying everywhere. Hawke leapt out of the way so her brother could charge into the fray of templars, and she threw fireballs with reckless abandon, desperate to destroy the enemy before they could sap her mana completely. Anders was a sight to behold, his eyes blazing with white light and fury, wielding far greater amounts of magic than a normal man should be able to. Hawke was terrified of him, and as soon as the last templar fell, she backed away from him and held her staff at the ready, should he decide to turn on them too.

Instead all of the fight went out of him and he turned back to his former friend, sadness in his eyes. “Anders?” Recognition crossed Karl’s face. “You… but how? It’s like the Fade itself is inside you, burning like a sun. Please, just kill me now, before I forget what it’s like to feel again.”

Anders turned to Hawke, his expression begging for help. “Do as he says,” Hawke gave him his answer. “Better a quick, merciful death than a life bereft of emotion or meaning.”

“I’m so sorry, Karl. I got here too late. I’m sorry,” Anders took the knife Varric held out for him and slid it between his friend’s ribs. “Goodbye.” He withdrew and Karl crumpled to the ground, his eyes clouding over in death.

Without another word, he turned and ran for the door. Hawke intended to follow him, but Varric grabbed the back of her shirt and shook his head when she glared at him. “Give him some time, Hawke. Then go and get your answers.”

 

* * *

 

And so she did. Out of respect for the dead, Cassandra gave Anders a full week to mourn before making the trek down to his clinic in the far reaches of Darktown. She found Anders tending to a small crowd that day, as only an older man and a young elven couple were present. She felt the soothing tingle of healing magic from across the room as he massaged the older man’s gnarled and work-worn hands, and the relief as the ache within them subsided was clear on the patient’s face.

Anders looked up as Hawke entered and motioned towards a small section of the room that was blocked off by makeshift screens, which she assumed was his personal corner of the clinic. She nodded and walked over, seating herself on a crate just in view of the healer and his patients.

The elven woman was heavy with child, likely just a handful of days from giving birth, and her lover sat by her side and smiled down at her as she spoke softly to him. The looks of utter devotion on their faces made Cassie feel strangely alone, but she was happy for them all the same.

“Ellira and Sorel. They live here in the Alienage, both refugees from Denerim,” Anders materialized next to her, wiping his hands on a rag that smelled of something clean and floral. “Two more days and they’ll be new parents. It really is quite amazing, how a new life is brought into this world. Sadly, it is far easier for them to be taken out of it again.” Anders sat down across from her and slumped back against the stack of crates behind him.

“I am sorry about your friend,” Cassandra said quietly. “Being made Tranquil… That’s my worst nightmare. He deserved better.”

“Thank you,” Anders gave her a sad smile. “Your kindness is appreciated. But I know you didn’t come here just to give me your condolences. I… I have some explaining to do.”

“That you do,” Hawke replied coolly. “I know that wasn’t normal magic you were using.”

Anders massaged his temples and sighed. “When I was in Amaranthine, I met a spirit of Justice who was trapped outside the Fade. We became friends, and he recognized the injustices that the mages of Thedas face every day.”

“And you offered to act as his host, I assume.”

“I… Yes. We wanted to work together and bring justice to all those shunned and tortured by the Chantry and their watchdogs, but I was too angry…” He looked down at his feet. “He changed. And now every time I find myself in a situation that once outraged me, but I could do nothing about, he comes out.”

Cassandra understood now. “Like what happened at the Chantry.”

“Exactly. But he is no longer my friend Justice. He is a force of vengeance,” Anders lamented. “And he has no grasp of mercy.”

Hawke was silent for a long while, trying to fully process this new information. Finally she spoke. “I cannot judge you for anything you did in your past. That’s not my place. But I can try to help you in the future.”

The healer looked up at her, surprised by her response. “You’re the first person I’ve told about this. Thank you for not running away. My maps are yours, and I offer my services as well, should you have need of them on your expedition,” He paused and gave her a small smile. “It seems I will never be rid of the damned Wardens, but perhaps killing some darkspawn will clear my conscience.”

Cassandra smiled and took her leave, a little more confident that this Deep Roads expedition was going to be a resounding success.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll try to keep this updating at a steady once-per-week rate for now, so I'll always have an extra chapter written in case of emergencies or if I get lazy one week, haha. Many thanks to my beta reader taranovae!

* * *

 

It was pure chance that Hawke ran into Meeran a few days later on her way home from visiting Varric in the Hanged Man. She had been steadily taking jobs and amassing the coin she needed to help fund Bartrand’s Deep Roads expedition, but it felt like things were slowing down as the season changed. The mornings had started to dawn with a thin film of frost upon the cobbled streets, and the birds that lived in the eaves of the Chantry had flown for warmer climes.

She had taken the job Meeran proposed to her, and Hawke gathered part of her little band of companions to help with the fight she could feel was coming. The streets were quiet as Hawke, Varric, Anders, and Aveline headed towards the designated meeting spot. Apparently the dwarf they were meeting was a merchant from Orzammar who had “misplaced” some of his product; namely, the crate of lyrium he had smuggled in from the dwarven thaig.

“Just add it to the list of things I’m an accessory to,” Aveline muttered as Hawke agreed to go and retrieve it for him.

“You can arrest him another day, Aveline,” Cassie replied as soon as they were out of the dwarf’s earshot. “For now, I need the coin more than I care about the rules.”

“I know,” her friend replied, “and that’s what concerns me.”

They found the address Anso had given them, a tiny hovel tucked away in a corner of the Elven Alienage where Hawke had never wandered before. Readying their weapons, the four of them burst in and took the thieves inside by surprise. Within the blink of an eye, the enemy was vanquished and Varric had the chest in the corner unlocked.

“Hawke,” He stood and turned to look at the rest of the group. “It’s empty.”

“A set up?” Anders questioned.

Cassandra shrugged. “Not a very well-organized one, if it was. We had better go tell Anso about this.”

As they stepped out into the night, they were greeted by a horde of what appeared to be Tevinter soldiers. “That’s not the elf!” one of them shouted.

One woman, obviously their leader, sneered at the speaker. “Doesn’t matter, we were told to kill whoever came out of there. Attack!”

Before anyone else could move, Varric leapt into their midst and let a hail of crossbow bolts rain down upon the enemy. Hawke threw a wall of ice in front of her to buy Aveline some time to get in position, and Anders stood back to back with her as the two of them played crowd control with fireballs and bolts of energy.

It was a hard battle, as they were outnumbered at least four or five to one. Cassandra took an arrow in her shoulder and cursed loudly as she pulled it out. Anders threw a chunk of ice at the bowman over her shoulder as Hawke stooped down to heal herself, pale blue magic oozing into her wound as she brushed her shoulder with her fingertips.

Finally, Varric slew the leader with a well-timed shot and the whole group collapsed into a pile just in front of the steps leading out of the Alienage, aching from a myriad of cuts and bruises. “Maker’s balls, where did they come from?” Varric voiced everyone’s thoughts ever so eloquently.

The four of them leapt to their feet as another Tevinter soldier appeared at the top of the stairs. “I don’t know who you are, friend, but you’ve made a mistake coming here tonight.”

“No shit,” Varric muttered.

Any other responses were delayed by another man stumbling around the corner, blood oozing out of his mouth as he coughed and spluttered. “C-captain, the elf has… killed our lookouts-” He fell to the ground, dead.

“And your trap has failed. I suggest running back to your master while you still can.”

The elf that materialized behind the Tevinter soldier was unlike any other Hawke had seen. His skin was dark, and the strange white tattoos that curled their way across his skin stood out like stars in the night sky. Brilliant green eyes stared out at them from behind a shock of snow white hair, and she could see the anger inside them plain as day.

The soldier turned to face him. “You, slave! Come quietly or I’ll be forced-” The newcomer’s tattoos began to glow pale blue and he thrust his hand through the other man’s chest, ripping out his heart as he withdrew and the glow subsided. He disdainfully threw the body aside and crushed the still-beating heart into the dust under his foot as he stepped closer to Hawke and her companions.

“I am not a slave.”

The growl behind his words made something in Cassandra’s belly flutter like a caged bird. She watched in fascination as he began pacing next to the body. “When I asked Anso to send a distraction for the hunters, I had no idea they’d be so… numerous.”

“A distraction?” Hawke stared at him incredulously.

“Correct,” The elf didn’t seem to care that she was a bit perturbed by these new developments. He stopped pacing and turned to face her. “My name is Fenris. Those men you just killed were Imperial bounty hunters sent to recover a magister’s lost property. Specifically, myself. Their methods of drawing me out were crude, but still, I could not have faced them alone.”

“So you decided to send complete strangers into the dragon’s jaws in your place,” Cassie replied shortly, annoyed that she had been deceived.

Fenris’s eyes narrowed. “Can you blame an ex-slave on the run for being overly cautious?”

“I suppose not, but still,” Hawke replied, “you didn’t have to lie to get my help.”

“That remains to be seen.” The look that Fenris gave her was almost predatory, like a cat waiting to pounce on its unsuspecting prey. The fluttering in her belly returned and she grasped for a witty retort, but her mouth seemed to have stopped working altogether. “I know you have questions, but first I must hunt down my former master. I know he’s here in the city, most likely in the wealthier district. Help me find him, and then you will get your answers.”

Hawke deliberated for a moment, scanning the faces of her companions to see how they were reacting to this news. “Aveline, I can’t ask you to become accomplice to anything else today for me. If you want to go, you can.”

“Thank you,” She nodded and took her leave, heading back to the guard’s barracks so she would not be missed much longer.

“My name is Cassandra Hawke,” She spoke to the elf once more. “Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

“ _Venhedis!_ ” Fenris swore in Tevene. “We were too late. He must have fled as soon as his first wave of scouts failed to report back. Take whatever valuables he may have left behind, I… need some air.”

The group had found the Tevinter magister’s mansion in Hightown, devoid of life aside from the Shades and Arcane Horror left behind to defend it. Fenris was obviously distraught that his former master Danarius was nowhere to be found, as he had thrown down his sword so hard that there were deep gashes in the wooden floor.

Hawke and her group took their time looting the place to allow Fenris some space, and they found him leaning against the wall just outside the door when they finally exited the mansion several minutes later.

“It never ends,” said the white-haired elf as Hawke approached. “I escaped a land of dark magic only to have it hunt me at every turn. It is a plague burned into my flesh and soul.”

Cassandra stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean?”

Fenris whipped around to face her and snarled, “I saw you casting spells in there. I should have realized sooner… What manner of mage are you, then? What do you seek to gain?”

“I’m just trying to get by,” she replied, startled by his ferocity.

“And yet I have seen terrible things done in the name of survival,” He gave her that predatory look again and Hawke struggled to ignore the strange sensation in her stomach. “But you did choose to help me rather than turn me in, so I owe you a debt. I can offer you only myself and what little coin I have, but should you have need of me, I will be here. Let Danarius try to return and claim his mansion. I will be waiting for him.”

 

* * *

 

The next few weeks seemed to fly by as Hawke and Carver continued to work every odd job they could find in order to reach their goal of fifty sovereigns before the short window of access to the Deep Roads closed. The Hawke siblings had taken to spending their evenings drinking with Varric in the Hanged Man, always careful of how much money they drank away.

“So do you think that Orlesian woman actually just up and left her husband?” Varric glanced up at Cassie from his writing. “I mean, we still haven’t found anything to the contrary, aside from the word of an elven prostitute and a vague outline of a potential trail from a templar long since past his prime. It’s a bit infuriating.”

“Is it worth the coin to worry about?” Varric replied, diligently scribbling away in his journal.

Hawke stared down into her mug of ale. “Good point. I guess we’ll just have to check out that abandoned foundry building Ser Emeric mentioned sometime.”

A commotion over by the bar caught the trio’s attention and Hawke instinctively leapt up and hurried over to see a Rivaini woman twirling a knife threateningly in front of the nose of a particularly unattractive sailor. “It’s not really worth dying for, is it?” The man turned and ran, and she downed the contents of her mug with a laugh. “I thought not.”

The other woman caught sight of Hawke and grinned. “Come to see what all the fuss is about? We’re nothing but tits and ass to the men in these places, and they won’t hesitate to grab at both.”

Cassie grinned back, instantly liking the scantily clad woman. “I take it you speak from experience.”

“That I do, sweet thing.” The woman introduced herself as Isabela, former captain of a pirate ship that had wrecked just off the coast a couple of months ago. She, like everyone Hawke seemed to befriend, had a problem that needed solving, and Cassie was only too happy to oblige as there was coin offered for her assistance.

Isabela led Hawke’s group up to the Chantry later that night, and on a whim the mage decided to go recruit Fenris for their task as well. He seemed a little too eager for the fight, but he was likely just so bored any kind of activity sounded good at the moment. There wasn’t much for a former Tevinter slave with distinctive markings to do in Kirkwall without drawing attention to himself.

The confrontation with Hayder’s men proved to be a tougher fight than Cassandra had anticipated, and she was glad she had brought Fenris and his blade along with them. Two rogues and a mage would have been no match for the tough raiders that had leapt out of hiding at them.

Wiping her daggers clean on the uniform of one of the dead men, Isabela sighed. “Well, Castillon won’t be hearing about me from Hayder, but he’ll find me eventually.”

Hawke remembered the brief conversation with the enemy before the fight. “If getting that relic you mentioned would get you out of trouble, I’d be happy to help you search for it.”

“If I hear anything about it, I’ll let you know,” Isabela stood and tossed the mage a small bag of loot she had acquired from the dead bodies strewn about them on the Chantry floor. “Anyways, thanks for the help. I think I’ll tag along with you for a while. I might be able to help you in return.”

“I think I’d like that,” Hawke grinned at her.

“And I have a room at the Hanged Man, if you’re looking for…” Isabela paused, her eyes slowly roving over the other woman’s body. “… _company_ later.” Her lips curled into a sly smile, and Hawke felt her cheeks go red. She couldn’t hold back a grin and an interested head tilt in return, however, and she could just imagine the look on the faces of the men standing next to her as Isabela brushed past her _very_ closely and disappeared out into the night.

“Varric,” Cassie said without looking at the dwarf, “you are _not_ putting that in your stories. Understood?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” She knew he was lying through his teeth, but it was still fun to egg him on.

As Varric, Fenris, and Hawke descended the steps of the Chantry, a thought struck the mage. She glanced over at Fenris, who was still cleaning blood from between the spikes on his armor with a strip of cloth torn from one of the raider’s uniforms.

“Fenris,” The warrior looked over, his green eyes plainly showing his distaste. “I know it’s probably not your favorite kind of place to be, but if you want to, you can join us at the Hanged Man. We’re there most nights, and we’d welcome your company.”

He looked genuinely surprised at her offer, as he straightened up and stopped glaring at the ground. “You… would wish me to spend time with you?”

Hawke grinned “First drink’s on me.”

Fenris’s lips twitched, and she thought that was the closest thing to a smile she might ever get from him. “Very well, I will accompany you tonight.”

 

* * *

 

“You were _definitely_ cheating, Rivaini, I saw you slip that card into your shirt!”

It had been three weeks since Hawke had added Isabela to her little band of misfits, and nearly every night the whole group met at the Hanged Man to drink and gossip and play cards with one another.

“No, I didn’t,” she denied, “and if you really want to prove it, come and get the damn thing from my voluptuous bosom.”

“Isabela,” Aveline groaned. "Please, the rest of us have to touch that card, you know.”

“I’m not gonna take it out unless somebody comes and gets it!”

This trend of Isabela stashing cards in questionable places had been going on for most of the night. So far Hawke and Fenris had deemed to stay quiet as they were seated on either side of the cheater, but suddenly both of them spoke at once.

“That’s my kind of pirate booty!”

The two of them looked at each other in surprise. Isabela glanced from one to the other and smirked. “Now, now, there’s plenty of me to go around, loves. I don’t mind a nice Isabela sandwich every now and again.”

Hawke blushed and looked away, while Fenris smirked and leaned back against the wall behind his chair. Varric began furiously scribbling away in his journal. Aveline, Carver, and Anders all made varying expressions of disgust and proceeded to ignore the rest of the group.

“You need to start paying me for this bullshit, Varric,” Hawke finally said, after clearing her throat. “My entire life is like one of your romantic comedies. Quirky sidekicks and all!”

“I am _not_ a sidekick,” Isabela threw an arm around her shoulders. “I’m your beautiful, exotic love interest who happens to be the best pirate in Thedas.”

Fenris’s lips twitched in his signature almost-smile. “The best pirate without a ship, you mean.”

“Details, love,” She wagged her finger at him. “You’re just jealous ‘cause _you’re_ not the love interest! Just imagine, you and our little Hawke, passionately embracing under the stars…”

“Oooookay, Isabela, I think you’ve had enough drink for one night,” Hawke could see the danger brewing in the Fenris's eyes. Had she been joking about anyone else being his lover, she might have egged the gregarious pirate on, but joking about a mage? Not the wisest choice. “Go bother Anders about his outfit again, it’s so funny to watch him puff up like a little bird with all those feathers on his shoulders.” Isabela didn’t need to be encouraged twice to pester him, and she did so with glee.

 

* * *

 

A few hours later, when the group began to disperse, Cassandra decided that she would walk back with Fenris so she could apologize for Isabela’s actions that night. She wasn’t usually so tactless, despite her tendency to imbibe half the stock of the Hanged Man on a regular basis.

They had barely gotten halfway through Lowtown before Fenris questioned Hawke’s odd change of behavior. “You don’t have to apologize for Isabela.”

Cassie was taken aback. “How did you know-?”

“Your face is like an open book,” he interrupted. “You seemed incredibly embarrassed earlier… At first I thought it was because you actually liked the idea of us ‘embracing under the stars,’ as our inebriated friend put it.”

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re joking,” Hawke replied, shaking her head.

Fenris glanced over at her and his lips twitched. “Good, that means it’s working.”

“ _What’s_ working?” she asked in exasperation. He only cocked an eyebrow in response.

Before she realized it, Hawke had walked all the way to Fenris’s mansion with him. Oddly enough, he seemed to have deigned her less of a threat then he had thought just two months ago, and actually invited her into his makeshift home.

The mansion was still in a general state of disrepair, but evidence of Fenris's efforts to organize the chaos was apparent. Piles of dirty, broken tableware and moldy furniture were pushed up against the walls and the floors had been swept clean wherever possible. Most of the flat surfaces in the main room shone as if they had been recently polished, and there was a pile of fresh wood near the fireplace.

“You’ve done so much work in here,” Cassie gazed around her. “It’s hard to believe that just two months ago this place was covered in dead bodies.”

“I work quickly,” Fenris replied, leading her up the stairs towards one of the back rooms. “If nothing else, being a slave taught me how to strive for perfection. Anything less resulted in… unpleasant consequences.”

The room they finally sat down in appeared to be Fenris’s personal bedroom, and the only one he frequently used. A small bed was tucked away in the corner, and across the room from that he had set up a small whetstone and leatherworking table.

“Do you repair your own weapons and armor?” Hawke asked as she sat on one of the wooden benches nearby.

“Considering I’ve been on the run for quite a while, with little money, they were useful skills to learn,” Fenris unbuckled his sword harness and propped it up against the table, carefully balancing the greatsword so it wouldn’t topple over onto his guest. “Also, as much fighting as I’ve done with you thus far, I get the feeling these skills will continue to be useful.”

“I’ll admit, I know nothing of the art of weaponry or armor-making,” Hawke said wryly. “We mages usually grab the nearest window pole, stick a blade on the end, and hope it can channel magic.”

Fenris made a noise that almost sounded like a laugh. “Now _that_ I would like to see. But you did not come here to talk about weapons. I know I promised you answers when we first met, and neither of us ever saw fit to hold one another to that.”

Hawke thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Truthfully, I don’t have any questions. It’s not my place to pry into the life of someone who probably doesn’t want to relive it.”

The surprise on his face was clear. “I… did not expect that. A mysterious elf appears out of nowhere, chased by Tevinter slave hunters and covered in markings made of pure lyrium, and you have no questions.” He turned away from her, and for a heartbeat Cassie thought she had given the wrong answer.

“Agreggio Pavali,” Fenris said suddenly, picking up a dark glass bottle from the end table by the bed. “There are six bottles in the cellar. Danarius used to have me poor it for his dinner guests. Apparently it pleased him that they were frightened by my appearance.”

“I can’t imagine why they would be put off.” Hawke’s hand immediately flew up to cover her mouth. Had she really just said that out loud? She could have died, she was so embarrassed. Every time she was around him her mouth had a mind of its own.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Fenris replied, turning back to look at her. He uncorked the bottle and took a sip before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and throwing the bottle against the far wall. Glass and dark red liquid scattered in all directions, and the wine dripping down the wall looked like blood oozing from a wound.

Hawke glanced between the wall and the warrior, bewildered. “Well, that was a waste.”

“Better on the floor than in the bellies of the magisters,” Fenris replied coldly. “It’s good I can still take pleasure in the small things.”

“I suppose after the life you’ve led, you deserve to throw a few bottles of wine against the wall.”

He scowled at the floor. “I’d prefer not to speak of it anymore.”

Cassandra suddenly grew serious. “If you ever want to, I would be more than willing to listen.”

Fenris laughed a humorless laugh and replied, “To my whining? How charitable of you. I just can’t seem to escape my past. It won’t stay where it belongs.”

They talked for a while about Lothering and Fereldan, Hawke’s family, and the tragedy that had driven her from her home. She found it odd how easy it was to talk to this almost complete stranger, and yet he hung on her every word as if it was the most interesting thing he’d heard in a month. Hawke thought she could grow to like the surly warrior, even if he never completely trusted her in return.

It was into the wee hours of the morning when the drink from the Hanged Man and the exhaustion of the day finally caught up with Hawke. “I should go,” she said as she stood up, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between Fenris and her.

“Shall I walk you home, Miss Hawke?” The corner of his mouth twisted upwards into a playful smirk. Cassie knew he was just making fun of her.

“Oh, no thank you, I can handle myself,” she replied with an exaggerated curtsey.

“That you can. I’m thankful that Anso found me such a capable woman,” That predatory look had returned to Fenris's eyes.

“You horrible flatterer,” Hawke could feel a blush creeping up her cheeks. “Maybe _I_ should be thanking Anso.”

“Maybe you should,” Fenris stood and stepped closer. “Perhaps I should practice my flattery for your next visit? With any luck, I’ll become better at it.”

“I, uh…” Cassandra fumbled for her words. “That would be nice.”

For the first time since she had met him, Fenris actually smiled at her. “Goodnight, Hawke.”

“Goodnight, Fenris.”

As soon as she was outside the mansion with the door closed behind her, she leaned back against the wooden frame and breathed in the chilled night air slowly to calm her pounding heart. This warrior was proving to be dangerous in more ways than one.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my lovely beta reader taranovae!

 

* * *

  
It was not even noon yet and Cassandra Hawke was utterly done with the world.

The last two months had just been one disaster after another, and she was beginning to lose faith in the goodness of humanity. In that short span of time, Hawke and her companions had dealt with two unsolved murders, one attempted murder that still ended with a death, a very pissed off magistrate because of it, and her brother being an even bigger ass than usual. Cassie had started to spend more time drinking at the Hanged Man then she did at home.

“Why does this always happen to me?” she groaned, nursing a mug of ale. “One week, just _one_ quiet week is all I want. Is that so much to ask?” She slumped forwards and rested her forehead against the table.

Isabela patted her head. “Poor little Hawke, I think you need a vacation. Or lots of sex. Either one will fix the problem.”

“I’m _not_ going to sleep with you, Isabela.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean _me_ ,” Cassie looked up at her in confusion. “You and Fenris could both use some stress relief, I think. He always looks like he’s frustrated by something, after all.”

“I might just take it out on _you_ ,” Fenris growled, leering at her. He pointedly did _not_ look over at Hawke, who sat next to him on the other side. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“Ooh, I think I’d like that, big boy,” Isabela winked at him. Varric and Hawke both rolled their eyes and sighed in unison. She honestly found the whole exchange hilarious, but she didn’t want to encourage the incorrigible pirate captain any more than she had to.

One or two comments wouldn’t hurt, though. “He’s shorter than you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Yet I’m still taller than you,” Fenris smirked at Cassandra as she puffed up indignantly. He seemed to be smiling more than he used to, though Varric still insisted on calling him “Broody.”

“Well, you’re _all_ taller than me,” said Varric, “so making fun of her doesn’t mean much. You _are_ rather short for a human though, Hawke.”

Cassie gave the two men scathing glances and sat up straighter. “Great things come in small packages! Like kittens and candy.” Truthfully, she wasn’t really that short, but compared to them she looked like a child because she was so skinny. Isabela’s curves and Fenris’s lean muscles made for two intimidating figures. She was just a squishy mage.

Sighing, Hawke slumped back down to her earlier position, forehead resting on the wooden table. “Varric, were there any other jobs I needed to look into today, or can I get really drunk and forget about everything for a while?”

“Some girl named Macha is looking for someone to help locate her lost brother.” Cassie groaned. “Sorry, Hawke. It’s that or waiting tables here at the Hanged Man, and I think we all know which one you’d rather do.”

Cassandra sat bolt upright and drained her mug in one long swallow. “Fine, where am I going?”

Varric looked up at her sheepishly. “Well, you’re not gonna like this much more than being a tavern wench… I hope you’re up for a little field trip to the Gallows.”

“The _what?_ ”

 

* * *

 

Hawke had only been in the Gallows that one time over a year ago when she and her family had first come to Kirkwall. Even back then, when she was not relatively well-known as a renegade mage, the towering white stone walls and bronze statues of weeping slaves had been nearly panic-inducing to her. She remembered being almost glad that Bethany had not lived to see this awful place, and go about her life in fear of being dragged there at any given moment. Better dead than a prisoner.

Fenris, too, was unhappy about being dragged to where the Circle of Magi was housed. Though he had begun to trust Hawke a little and openly expressed concern over her being there, overall he still despised the mages that lived inside its walls.

Thank the Maker that Isabela and Varric seemed to not care either way and simply wanted to get in, do their business, and then leave immediately.

Cassandra had to interrogate a group of the new templar recruits to get the information she was after. Macha’s brother Keran had apparently gone to take part in Knight-Commander Meredith’s new, tougher initiation and had never returned, along with at least two other recruits.

“Wilmod came back,” one of the female templars had told them. “He headed out to Sundermount to ‘clear his head’ a couple hours ago. You might still be able to catch him on the road.”

Instantly suspicious, Hawke and her companions rushed to make it to Sundermount before their only lead disappeared into thin air. What they found was unexpected.

Knight-Captain Cullen was locked in battle with Wilmod, the two grappling with one another as they shouted back and forth. Hawke and her companions couldn’t make out what they were saying until the older templar glanced over his shoulder and spotted them.

“This is templar business, leave strangers!” The other templar took advantage of the moment and slugged the Knight-Captain in the cheek, sending him sprawling on the ground.

Suddenly Wilmod’s body began to contort and a blinding light forced everyone to look away. Had Fenris not drawn his sword at the exact moment, the grotesque abomination that had once been the young templar would have clawed Cassie through the heart.

Within seconds there was a full-blown battle taking place, and Hawke was glad she had opted to bring Varric and Isabela as they were essential for crowd control. Wilmod had summoned a horde of shades and other demons to his side, and she would have run out of mana had it not been for them.

Fenris took the brunt of the onslaught, somehow managing to dance between his opponents and deliver crushing blows with his greatsword, all while not getting a scratch on him. Hawke would catch glimpses of him every now and again as she summoned fire and ice to destroy their enemies, and the wicked grin on his face was one step away from downright terrifying.

By the time the fight was over, Hawke had used up her mana so completely that she swayed a little from exhaustion as she stood facing the Knight-Captain. “Thank you,” he began, “I don’t know what I would have done had you not shown up when you did.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been spending your free time with a demon,” Isabela muttered, rolling her eyes.

Cullen gave her a scathing glance. “I had hoped to confront him quietly, but alas, demons are not known for their manners.”

This templar was far more helpful than the recruits had been in terms of hints as to Keran’s potential whereabouts, and before long Hawke and friends found themselves walking into the infamous Blooming Rose. Isabela immediately struck up a conversation with the woman who kept the books, and within minutes she had the records of all the templars’ comings and goings from the brothel.

“Apparently all the recruits have been regulars of someone called ‘Idunna, the Exotic Wonder from the East.’”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Hawke tried to stifle a laugh at the ridiculous moniker as Isabela relayed her information to the group.

Isabela grinned at her. “And that’s not even the strangest one on the list!”

“Can we get back to the task at hand so we can leave, or do you two plan on staying the night with one of these… fine young ladies?” Fenris shifted uncomfortably as a pretty elven girl across the room made eyes at him.

Isabela laughed and led them upstairs to the room where their target was. Thankfully she wasn’t entertaining a customer at the moment, so Hawke and her friends were able to waltz right in.

The woman they found was undoubtedly pretty, in a sort of cruel way. Her face was all sharp lines and arches beneath long, dark red hair. She smiled graciously as the group entered. “Well, I wasn’t expecting a group tonight, but the more, the merrier, I suppose…”

“Actually, I’m just here looking for information.” Hawke explained their predicament, but noticed that the more she said, the stormier the other woman’s expression became.

“Questions are boring,” Idunna finally interrupted, seductively sitting down on the bed and stroking the velvety coverlet. “Why don’t we have some fun instead?”

“Hawke, go easy on this… lovely creature.” Everyone turned to look at Varric in surprise. The only thing he ever called lovely was his crossbow Bianca, and never as seriously as he had sounded.

“What’s gotten into you?” Isabela pouted. “You never talk about _me_ like that!”

“How about I ask a question this time?” Idunna smiled slyly. “Who told you about little old me?”

Hawke tried to say something, but her words were suddenly not her own. “It was… the bookkeeper. She pointed us to you.” She shook herself, her mind feeling disoriented and fuzzy.

“That little sewer rat! Fine, I’ll deal with her later,” The other woman stood and walked over to Cassie, their faces just inches apart. “Now do me a favor, sweetheart. Draw that little blade of yours and draw it across your throat slowly.”

Cassandra panicked as she felt her hand move of its own accord. The small dagger she kept in her belt for emergencies had been freshly sharpened just two days before, and as soon as she brought it to her throat and pressed, a line of blood beaded up from beneath her skin.

The sudden pain brought her crashing back to reality and Hawke flung the dagger away. She forced the prostitute backwards until she hit the wall. Terrified, Idunna began begging for mercy, but the mage’s eyes were full of cold fury.

“Tell me what I need to know and how you just did that. _Now_.”

“Blood and desire, in equal measure. Together they can bend the will of most,” Idunna fell to her knees in fear, and Hawke looked down at her distastefully.  “A mage named Tarohne put me here, to seduce and enchant the templars who came to me so that I could send them to her for… experiments. She’s holed up in the Undercity.”

“Thank you for your help,” Hawke ground out from between gritted teeth. “Now I’m going to leave, and you may find some angry templars visiting you very soon. If you try to bewitch them too, I’ll find you again myself and take care of you more permanently. Understood?”

Idunna nodded, both terrified and thankful that she had been spared for now.

Cassie turned to her companions, eyes still clouded with rage. “Come on, let’s leave this place.” Without a word, the rest of the group followed her, giving each other stunned glances behind her back.

Cassandra didn’t care. All she could think about as she led her team towards Darktown was just how useful magic like that could be.

 

* * *

 

The attempted rescue of the templar recruit Keran did not go nearly as well as planned. Tarohne and her fellow blood mages proved to be a powerful force to be reckoned with, and none of Hawke’s group came out unscathed.

Hawke tended to Keran first, however, once he was released from the strange magical cage he had been held in. She questioned him gently while she used the last of her dwindling mana to restore strength to his body.

“I d-don’t know what happened,” the young templar told her. “Last thing I remember, I was… with a lady. And then n-nothing but pain and screaming. For how long I can’t say.”

“Shh, it’s over now,” Cassandra clasped one of his hands and looked him in the eye. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, but you may be inhabited by a demon.”

Keran’s eyes widened with terror and he immediately pushed her away and shook his head vigorously. “No, that can’t be! I’m not a mage! I… I have to go find my sister.” Before Hawke could move, he ran off into the alleyways of the Undercity.

She tried to chase after him, but Fenris stopped her. “We should return to the templars. They need to know about this.”

When they arrived at the Gallows, Knight-Captain Cullen was waiting for them. Keran had found his sister there and the two were hugging one another tightly. Their joy ceased when they saw the somber faces of Hawke and her companions.

“Knight-Captain, we need to talk. About Keran, and some of your other recent recruits,” Cullen nodded at Cassie to continue. “Blood mages were trying to infiltrate your ranks by forcefully implanting demons into the new recruits. Wilmod, Keran, and several others were all subjected to this treatment.”

“Are you saying…?”

“I’m afraid so. Keran could be possessed, and we would have no idea until it’s too late,” Cassandra tried not to look at the young man’s face. She of all people did not want to side with the templars, but this could spark a disaster for all the mages _and_ templars in the city. “I would suggest discharging him from the Order.”

“No!” Keran shouted, his face a mask of rage. “You can’t do that! Without this position, my sister and I will starve!”

Hawke opened her mouth to speak, but when she looked at him, nothing came out. Fenris stepped in for her. “We know you are not to blame. But this is for both your safety and the safety of everyone who might become a victim, should you truly be possessed.”

Knight-Captain Cullen’s sadness was plain on his face, but nonetheless, he did his duty and Keran was escorted from the Gallows, his sister weeping as she followed. “Though it grieves me, I thank you for your honesty,” he said to Cassandra as they watched them go. “The Order will not forget the service you have done for us.”

Cassie graciously took the gold he offered her by way of reward, and as she and her friends were walking out of the Gallows she stashed it in her coin purse, counting as she did. “One, two, three… Hang on, what’s this?”

She pulled out an intricately crafted amulet strung on a long silver chain. She couldn’t remember for the life of her where she had gotten it.

Varric, however, seemed to recognize it. “Uh, Hawke? I’m pretty sure you were supposed to deliver that to the Dalish for that dragon witch lady, oh, about a year ago. Remember the story of how you got to Kirkwall?”

“ _Shit_.”

 

* * *

 

Four days, three major arguments, two treks up and down Sundermount, and the addition of one elven blood mage to their party later, Hawke found herself lying awake late into the night, thinking back on the events of that week so far.

The Dalish had not been as welcoming as she expected, even though their Keeper Marethari said she had led them to Sundermount specifically to wait for the bearer of Asha’bellanar’s amulet. They were even cruel to one of their own. Merrill was the single most innocent, bubbly person Cassie had ever met, but her status as a blood mage did not sit well with very many people.

Hawke winced as she recalled the first fight she and Fenris had gotten into over allowing the pretty young elf to join their band of misfits. The first time Merrill had used her blood magic to aid them on the mountain, he had gone into a tirade of condemnations of the practice, all evidenced by his experiences in Tevinter. Cassandra and the warrior had nearly come to blows when she decided to defend the young woman’s actions.

The rest of that journey was tense, and not even Isabela and Varric’s attempts at humor could lighten the mood. Merrill wilted every time Fenris so much as glanced at her. And the sullen warrior would not even look at Hawke.

He still would not speak to her, several days later. He had gone with her to the Bone Pit when she asked, but not a word passed between them the whole time, even when they were literally back-to-back with one another fighting a horde of dragonlings. Aveline had elected to go with her that time in place of a disposed Isabela, and even the tough as nails Guard-Captain could not make Fenris talk.

When Hawke returned home after their battle with the dragons overrunning the mines, Carver had decided to lay into her about always being in her shadow, even when they were doing completely separate things. Cassandra had nearly set him on fire out of spite twice.

Too restless to sleep, she dressed and went to sit in the main room. Her mabari raised his sleepy head to greet her as she sat down next to him by the fireplace. She stroked his head and sighed. “Why can’t everyone be like you and love me unconditionally?”

Ollie nuzzled her hand and sighed too. Hawke smiled sadly down at him. “I wish you could speak, so I could have some actual intelligent conversation.”

“Making small talk with the dog again, big sister?” Cassie looked up to see her brother standing in the doorway of the bedroom he shared with their uncle, rubbing the weariness out of his eyes.

“Did I wake you?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Carver replied, running a hand through his hair. “Nightmares.”

“Bethany?” The pained look on her brother’s face gave Hawke her answer. “I get them too.”

“You’d think the wound would heal some after a year and half, but it’s still as raw as the day it happened. I miss her every day,” His voice was thick with pain. “It’s not bloody fair. I wish it had been me instead.”

Cassandra stood and did something she should have done long ago: she hugged Carver and held him until she felt his tense shoulders relax. “It’s not bloody fair,” he whispered again.

“I know,” she replied softly, “I know.”

Eventually the two of them sat down at the table that doubled as Hawke’s base of operations most days. Carver cleared his throat awkwardly. “Thank you,” he finally said.

A pile of letters on the corner of the table caught Cassandra’s eye and she remembered why she had tried to talk to her brother a couple of days earlier. “Don’t thank me just yet, I have something for you.” She placed them in her brother’s hands, and he stared at them in confusion before opening one and beginning to read it.

Upon seeing the handwriting within the letters, Carver looked up in surprise. “These are… Father’s? But I would assume a mage would get more out of the…”

“Some of them, yes. But look at the one with the blue ribbon seal.”

He opened that specific letter and read it silently. When he got to the last few lines, his eyes widened. “’For your service that cannot be admitted, I ask that you accept this trinket, and know that I shall respect your name. Thank you, conscience of the order, Ser Maurevar… Carver.’”

Hawke’s brother looked up at her in surprise. “A templar? Have we ever met a templar who isn’t a colossal prig?”

“Ser Maurevar was a good one,” Cassie replied, smiling a little.

“A man who let him look ahead, and a name that would always mean ‘skill thoughtfully applied,’” Carver stared in wonderment at the piece of parchment in his hands. “I don’t know what to say except… thank you.”

“Go back to bed, little brother. I think you have a lot to sleep on now,” Hawke watched him go, still shaking his head in disbelief, and then she returned to her earlier position by the fireplace.

She, too, had a lot to sleep on. The conversation she had on Sundermount’s summit with the witch who had helped the Hawke family get to Kirkwall still nagged at the back of her mind.

“We stand upon the precipice of change,” Cassandra murmured to herself. The words were burned into her mind like a brand. “The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment… And when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall you learn whether you can fly.”

She was not a dragon. She was not even a hawk, not really. How could someone so weighted down by the concerns of the world be able to shed them and beat the inevitable fall back down to earth when she leapt?

Sighing, Hawke patted her dog one last time before she stood and walked slowly back to her room. As she lay in bed, she mulled over everything once more before finally drifting towards sleep.

 _I am not a dragon, or a hawk. I do not need to be. But I_ am _a Hawke, and I will teach myself how to fly_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again to my fantastic beta reader taranovae!

 

* * *

 

Instead of joining the rest of her friends at the Hanged Man that afternoon, Hawke had elected to go and visit Merrill in her little Alienage home. Ever since Fenris’s outburst on Sundermount, she was hesitant to go near him, so Merrill did not join the main group most days.

“Oh dear, I wasn’t expecting company!” she said as he hurried to clean up a few stray objects. “It’s so nice of you to visit me though, Hawke. I’ll find you something to sit on!”

Eventually Merrill recovered two beaten up old armchairs from the corner and dragged them over to the table. “Can I get you something to eat or drink? I have… water.”

Cassie laughed and grabbed her hand before she could run off to get something again. “You don’t have to fuss over me, I came to see _you_.”

Merrill smiled at her gratefully and the two sat down. “I just wanted to thank you… For bringing me here. For showing me kindness, up on the mountain when we first met. Not many people do.”

“Did you not have friends among your clan?”

“Being the Keeper’s first, I was a bit… secluded. I studied magic and history while the others learned the Vir Tanadhal,” Merrill sighed and bowed her head. “I suppose it’s a good thing that I left. I would have made a terrible Keeper, since I’ve never been good with people.”

“I think you’re doing just fine,” Hawke replied with a sad smile. “I know what it’s like, to be surrounded by people but have no one to call a friend. Because of my magic, I couldn’t trust many people outside my family for fear of them turning my younger sister or me in to the templars.”

“Well, we can be friends, right?” Merrill gazed at her with hope in her eyes.

Cassie laughed joyfully and took the other mage’s hands. “Oh, Merrill, we already are!”

“I’ve never had a friend before… Does this mean we can sit around and braid each other’s hair and gossip about everybody else, like the girls in my clan did?”

“Dalish girls have time for that?”

Merrill shook her head solemnly. “Oh, yes, we can only frolic around so much. We have to give our legs a rest for a while, so sitting and talking is a good substitute.”

Cassandra genuinely couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. Nonetheless, she agreed wholeheartedly and promised that the next time she visited, they could do just that.

“Thank you for coming to see me, Hawke,” said Merrill as she walked with her to the front door. “It means a lot to me.”

 

* * *

 

The last thing Cassie expected to see when she walked out of Merrill’s house was an older elven woman sobbing as she clung to the arm of a male templar. She hung back in the shadows until the man left, and she hurried over to the other woman before she could leave.

“I don’t mean to pry, but what was all that about?”

The elven woman sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I am Arianni. My son, Feynriel… he’s run away. He had dreams, terrible dreams of the Fade and demons. I could not bear to send him to the Circle, but now I fear he is in more danger from himself, running free like he is now, than from the templars.”

Cassandra asked Arianni, “Is there anything I could do to help you?”

“Just find him, please. Bring him somewhere safe,” Arianni pleaded. “You can start looking by talking to Ser Thrask, the templar who was with me, in the Gallows. Or perhaps his father, Vincento, will have seen him. He runs a market stall here in Lowtown.”

Hawke assured her that she would find Feynriel, if it were within her power, and then headed straight for the Hanged Man to recruit some of her friends for the task. When she arrived, she was surprised to see that only Varric, Fenris, and Isabela were present.

“Where is everybody else?” Cassie asked as she approached Varric’s table.

“Ah, we thought you weren’t going to show up tonight,” he replied. “Aveline had guard duty tonight, so she couldn’t make it out. Blondie came in for a while, but he said he had a large crowd at the clinic so he couldn’t stay long. I have no idea where your brother is, and I assume you were with Daisy earlier, so I believe that accounts for everyone.”

Fenris and Isabela were deep into a game of Wicked Grace, and only nodded briefly to Hawke as she sat down next to Varric. “So, I have a job for us.” _That_ made them look up from their cards.

“Do tell,” Isabela laid her cards face-down on the table.

Cassandra explained to them the situation, and before long, the group was heading towards the Gallows in order to find Ser Thrask before they closed the gates for the night. They found him pacing in the courtyard restlessly.

“Ser Thrask!” Hawke called to him as they approached. The man looked at them suspiciously as he stopped and turned around, but he listened to her story nonetheless.

“This _is_ official templar business,” he said after a few moments, “but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have some extra help. There is an ex-templar, Samson, who has been known to help… runaway mages get out of the city. He usually hangs about the entrance to Darktown at night.”

And so the group took their leave and made their way to Darktown. By the time they arrived, it was past sunset, and Samson was just where they had hoped he would be. Cassie explained their story again, and the ex-templar directed them towards the docks, where Feynriel might have gone to look for passage out on a ship, as he had no money to pay Samson for his services.

“May as well try there, too,” she muttered, leading her companions in that direction.

 

* * *

 

“This is a bloody wild goose chase!” Hawke fumed as they recovered from their fight with Captain Reiner’s men and the demons set loose by none other than Thrask’s own daughter, Olivia, when she had turned into an abomination.

“If there are slavers involved, I will keep following the trail until every last one of them is rotting in the ground,” The ferocity in Fenris’s voice made Hawke look up at him in surprise. “Do not mistake that as concern for the boy, however. He foolishly believed he could run from the Circle, and he has dug his own grave if we do not reach him in time.”

“Ooh, that’s a tad bit harsh,” Isabela said as she dropped a bag of coin she had pilfered from the dead into Hawke’s hand. “Why don’t you talk to me like that?”

Fenris cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, you like that kind of thing, hmm? I will remember that next time.”

“Next time?” Cassandra shook her head. “Maybe I should just leave you two here alone for a while and Varric and I will go rescue the boy like the adults we are.”

Varric laughed loudly. “Nope, sorry Hawke, if that ever happened I would want to be there so I could sell the story later!”

“Well, fine, I’ll just go myself,” she grumbled as she led them towards the door of the warehouse. “Can’t do anything with you silly children around…”

The letter she had found on Captain Reiner’s body pointed towards an area in the far reaches of Darktown as the meeting spot with a Tevinter slaver named Danzig. Hawke nearly had to restrain Fenris when they caught sight of the group loitering about, but the sharp shake of her head stopped him in his tracks.

“Well, what do we have here?” the man she assumed to be Danzig proclaimed. “Volunteers, perhaps?”

“If you think we are volunteers, then you are sorely mistaken,” Cassandra countered hotly. “I’m looking for a young elven boy, Feynriel, who you may have recently… acquired. Tell me where I can find him.”

The Tevinter men leered at them as the group stepped forwards. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. I bet you’d look good in chains,” their leader sneered.

“Fenris, make him talk.”

“Gladly.” Fenris’s body began to glow and he rushed forwards, thrusting his hand into the startled slaver’s chest and tightly gripping his heart. He lifted the man off the ground and held him there for a few heartbeats before releasing him.

“Andraste’s great flaming ass, how did you _do_ that?” Danzig coughed and spluttered as he laid on the ground, forcing himself up eventually with a great deal of trouble. “The boy is in a cave on the Wounded Coast, an old smuggler hideout. Now please, let me live and I will never return to this city!”

The cold rage in Fenris’s eyes when she glanced at him affirmed Hawke’s own thoughts. “If I let you live, I condemn countless innocents to slavery.” She did not even flinch when Fenris’s hand shot out again and phased into the man’s body, ripping his heart out in one deft movement and splattering blood across all of them with the force of his attack.

The rest of the Tevinter men folded like wet paper beneath the onslaught of the warrior and the mage, their other companions barely lifting a finger to help before the battle was won. Fenris and Cassandra smiled grimly at one another over the bodies of the dead.

“One less slaving gang to mar the world,” said Hawke.

“As it should be,” replied Fenris.

Varric and Isabela glanced at one another, not missing the strange spark that passed between their friends. It looked suspiciously similar to affection.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t think I trust him.”

“Varric, you don’t trust anybody.”

The group had run into a dwarf and his men being besieged by some of the giant spiders native to the caves and tunnels under Sundermount. After saving them, he had offered Hawke a great deal of coin to kill the Qunari deserters known as the Tal-Vashoth that had overrun that part of the coast.

Seeing no downside to this offer, considering they were heading straight through the thick of them anyways, Cassie had accepted and quickly took her leave of the area. All those spiders, dead or alive, gave her the creeps.

Fighting the Tal-Vashoth proved to be more difficult than Hawke had expected, but with the help of a few well-timed grenades and fireballs, the group made good time through the Wounded Coast. The old smuggler’s cave, once they found it, was significantly more difficult as both the slavers and the spiders seemed to have a personal vendetta against them.

By the time Hawke and her companions arrived in the final room, they were all covered in blood and gore, though the mage had done her best to patch them up with her healing magic.

“Stop right there, or I kill the boy!” The leader of the slavers held his blade to Feynriel’s throat.

“Varric, help me out,” Hawke muttered to her friend.

The dwarven storyteller was in his element, spinning a tale from thin air as he went. “Oh, you got a tip that some guy was selling mage-flesh cheap? And you didn’t think to ask where he got it?”

The man’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“You never stopped to wonder if you were buying the viscount’s well-known love child from his elven mistress? The boy he swore to protect, even if it meant razing the entire Free Marches?” Hawke had to look away and bite her lip to stop from laughing.

“I… I do not seek war. Take the boy to his father, then,” Isabela and Hawke were now both sniggering under their breath at the man’s expression of pure terror.

“Oh, we will,” Hawke finally said, bringing her laughter under control. Her lips curled into a cruel smile. “Once you’re _dead_.”

Isabela’s knife snuffed out the man’s life before he could even process what she had said. Hawke generally did not enjoy killing, but there was something gratifying about watching slavers and the like burn with just a wave of her hand, and she rained fire upon the enemy until her companions could finish them off without much trouble. As Varric and Isabela began searching the bodies for valuables, Cassandra and Fenris coaxed the terrified Feynriel out from where he had hidden when the slaver’s leader was felled.

“How did you know that lie would work?” he asked, obviously shaken. “What if he had decided to kill me anyways?”

“You were too valuable to kill,” Cassie reassured the young mage. “Varric knew what he was doing.”

“Who sent you? Was it the templars?”

Hawke held up her hands, trying to calm the frantic elf. “No, your mother sent us to look for you.”

Feynriel sneered at her. “Oh, of course, I get a few bad dreams and it’s off to the templars with me!”

“You belong in the Circle of Magi.” It felt strange to hear herself say that. Cassandra had avoided the eyes of the templars her whole life, only to send one of her own kind into their clutches. But this boy did not have a teacher, like her father had been for her.

“I could go to the Dalish! They’ve had magic forever, I know they could help me!” Feynriel was getting desperate now.

“Because no Dalish mage ever went astray,” Fenris retorted sarcastically, obviously referencing Merrill. Hawke chose to ignore it for now and scold him for it later.

“Please, trust me. The Circle may not be the most favorable place to for a mage to live, but it’s the safest.”

Feynriel’s angry expression softened into bitter resignation. “Fine, I’ll turn myself in, but my mother will be the only one I _don’t_ miss when they lock me up!”

That night, after they had escorted Feynriel back to Kirkwall and broke the news to his mother, Fenris chose to walk with Cassandra back to her uncle’s house in Lowtown. Though she thought it odd, as that was practically in the opposite of Fenris’s mansion in Hightown, she did not object.

They walked in silence until the pair reached the steps leading up into Gamlen’s house. Fenris stopped and turned to look at Hawke, his face showing no sign of why he was even there.

“You did the right thing,” he said quietly. “Today, with the boy. He did not know the danger he posed to himself.”

“I don’t need another lecture about how scary and dangerous mages are, Fenris,” Hawke narrowed her eyes. “You forget what I am.”

“Not all mages are like you,” The sincerity in his voice surprised her. “Perhaps if more of them received the kind of training your father gave you, the world would be a safer place.”

“I… Thank you.”

Fenris smiled at her. “Goodnight, Hawke.”

As she lay in her bed listening to the quiet breathing of her mother and the crackle of the fireplace in the next room, all Cassie could think about was what Fenris had told her. _You did the right thing_.

Hawke hoped she really had.

 

* * *

 

“If I never see another Qunari, it’ll be too soon.”

In the week that had passed since Feynriel’s rescue and subsequent deliverance to the Circle, Hawke’s group had been busy. The dwarf they had killed the Tal-Vashoth for had proved to be a money-hungry merchant who imagined the entire deal with the Qunari Arishok for the exploding powder. It was only due to Fenris’s previously hidden knowledge of their language and culture that saved both the dwarf and their group from potential bodily harm.

Not to mention the Chantry sister with a sinister agenda who had hired them to lead a Qunari mage out of the city. That whole thing had ended in disaster. And “rescuing” the Viscount’s missing son from his supposed Qunari kidnappers had not been a picnic either.

“Where did you even learn Qunlat?” Hawke asked Fenris as she poked at the food on her plate. She was hungry, but mildly distrustful of the Hanged Man’s cuisine.

“When you live in a nation under constant threat from the Qunari, you pick up a few things here and there.” Hawke got the feeling there was more to his story, but she wouldn’t pressure him into telling it.

“I always thought the Qunari just grunted at each other and made vague hand gestures,” Isabela interjected with a laugh. “They’re a bunch of big horned brutes, not exactly the kind of look that makes you think ‘oh, these fine fellows must have a complex and stringent system of government and a religion based upon who’s best at what role in society.’”

Fenris rolled his eyes at her. “That’s because the group living here in Kirkwall is part of the Antaam. They’re all warriors, not skinny little rogues like you.”

Isabela made an over-exaggerated gasp and sat up straighter, placing a hand over her chest as if horrified by what he had said. “How impolite! Speaking to a beautiful lady like me in such a way, it’s unheard of!”

Aveline, who had managed to set aside some free time to join them that night, spoke up. “If you’re a beautiful lady, Isabela, then I’m a ten foot tall ogre with a limp.”

“Wait, so I’ve been describing _both_ of you wrong this whole time?” Varric’s addition caused almost all of the group to burst into laughter.

All except Fenris. He seemed a bit annoyed that the demonstration of his knowledge had been mostly ignored. Hawke noticed this and gave him a small smile. “Well I think it’s interesting that we only ever see the one part of their whole nation. It would be odd to think of the Qunari as anything but big grey-skinned men with horns.”

His expression softened and he smiled back at her in silent thanks.

Fenris chose to walk back with Hawke to her uncle’s home with her that evening, after the rest of the group had dispersed into the night. She was glad he was comfortable enough around her to actively seek out her company on occasion. The pair was silent as they walked through the torchlit streets of Lowtown, shivering a little in the cold night air.

Out of the shadows ahead of them, a man suddenly ran straight into Cassandra and both of them went sprawling. “Andraste’s tits, slow down you idiot!” she scolded as she pushed the stranger off of her. “You don’t own the streets.”

“Cassandra? Thank the Maker, I was just coming to look for you!”

Hawke recognized the voice and immediately helped her younger brother to his feet. “Carver, why are you careening down the streets like a drunk mabari in the middle of the night?”

Panting a little, he held up an unsealed letter. “This. It showed up on the doorstep a few minutes ago. You’d better read it.”

Cassie took the letter and began reading, muttering to herself as she did. “’I dare not contact you directly, but we have met before… I require your aid in a delicate task… the lives of many innocents may be on my hands…”

Fenris scowled at the piece of paper. “I do not trust this. A scheme to ambush one of our group, perhaps? I would not put it past my pursuers to try and get to me through another.”

Hawke was torn. Fenris had a point, but what if there really _was_ some horrible thing about to happen that she could prevent? “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I can’t just ignore something like this. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want, but I would appreciate the help.”

“Well _I_ am going home and going to bed. I want no part in whatever crazy situation you’re about to get yourself into,” Carver said, taking the letter back from her. “Just… don’t die, please? Mother would blame me.”

“If I die, I’m gonna come back to haunt your sorry ass!”

Carver rolled his eyes at her and then headed back towards Gamlen’s hovel.

Cassandra turned to look at Fenris, her face now somber. “Go see if Varric is still awake in the Hanged Man. I’m going to try and catch up with one of our other friends and hope we’re not all too drunk to save a few lives.”

Fenris nodded and disappeared into the shadows.

 

* * *

 

The predicament Hawke had dragged her friends into was nothing like what she had expected it to be. The author of the desperate plea for help was none other than the templar who had helped them find Feynriel when he ran away. And this time, there was an entire group of apostates involved.

“I think I’m going to be sick…!” Hawke fell to her knees behind a boulder and retched, sending the contents of her dinner back the way they had come. The stench of decaying bodies was nigh unbearable in the small entrance cavern the group had descended into. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood, swaying a little as she walked back to where her friends stood.

“They’ve raised the bloody dead,” Anders whispered. “They must be truly desperate.”

Fenris grimaced as he wiped the gore from the battle off his blade. “Mages will always resort to the forbidden if they feel enough need.”

“ _Fenris_ ,” Cassie warned, not wanting the two to come to blows over their unpleasant circumstances.

The four companions moved further into the cave, wary of what else might lie in the depths. Fenris was obviously not happy about Hawke’s decision to bring Anders along, as he walked right beside her and stayed far away from the healer.

“Why did you elect to bring the abomination with us?” he growled. “You know he will side with these apostates and try to let them run free.”

“I can hear you back here, you know!” Anders fumed.

“Good!” Fenris whipped around to face him. “Perhaps you will think twice about what you do before you endanger the lives of those around you!”

“Endanger them? I’ve saved more lives since I came to Kirkwall than any other herbalist or physician in the city! If anyone here is bringing potential harm to others, it’s you and your tendency to rip out people’s _hearts_.”

“ _Enough!_ ”

Fenris, Anders, and Varric all turned to look at Hawke, stunned into complete silence. They had never heard her raise her voice before, not even when she had been nearly frothing with rage.

“I can’t bring you two within fifty feet of each other without one of you starting a fight over something. I’m trying to _save people’s lives_ while you’re bickering like children!” Hawke’s pale blue eyes pierced them like shards of ice. “ _I wish I had never brought you along!_ ”

She turned on her heel and marched into the darkness of the tunnel ahead of them, not even bothering to take the lantern from Varric’s hand.

“Well, I think you’ve both just fucked up royally,” Varric mused. Anders and Fenris only stared after Hawke in distress.

 

* * *

 

The final confrontation with the group of apostates only made the tension between the two men worse when it was revealed that the leader of the company had been the one to turn to blood magic in order to secure their freedom.

The man’s wife, Grace, was livid with Cassandra after the battle. “I saw what you are! How could you kill one of your own kind just for defying the templars?”

“Well, he didn’t exactly raise the dead to serve me tea,” she retorted.

The fight went out of the other woman and she sagged, hung her head in exhaustion. “Please, we just want our freedom. The templars will execute us for my husband’s crimes if you do not help us.”

“And you expect us to believe-” The scathing glance Cassie shot Fenris instantly shut him up.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t just let you go. Even if you had no part in the blood magic, you’ll be safer in the Circle than on the run,” Anders and Fenris both raised their eyebrows, not believing their ears. Hawke sending Feynriel to the Circle had been one thing, but to send an entire group of her own kind to the very place she so fervently hated and avoided was madness.

Grace scowled at the ground for a moment before looking up at the other mage. “Then lay down your arms. I am trying to save our lives, not throw them away. We will come peacefully.”

The group of templars Thrask had warned them of had shown up by the time the party emerged from the cavern, runaway mages in tow. After a brief exchange between Hawke and the templars, she threatened Ser Karras with an incredibly detailed and expletive-laden account of what she would do should he harm the mages and promptly left once she took Ser Thrask’s promised reward.

Cassandra could not bear to be in the company of Anders or Fenris for another moment after all that had transpired that night. As she made her way down the coast towards Kirkwall, she kept replaying the conversation with Grace in her head, trying to rationalize the choice she had made.

Had it really been her place to decide whether the apostates went free or not? Why had Thrask even bothered asking for her help when he knew none of the options were good ones? The whole situation was a tangled mess of conflicting ideals.

By the time she reached the city, the sky in the east was beginning to turn pale gold, heralding the sun’s arrival. Burned out from her long and harrowing night, Cassie didn’t even bother undressing as she fell into bed and lay there, thoughts still spinning out of control.

Hawke dreaded the price she might pay for this supposed act of mercy.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning: there is NSFW stuff in this chapter!  
> As always, thank you to my awesome beta reader taranovae.

* * *

 

The day that Bartrand’s Deep Roads expedition was set to leave began under a sky heavy with clouds. Though Hawke took the stormy weather as an ill omen, this was their last chance before the snows came and made the roads to their destination impassable. Once Bartrand had her hard-earned gold in his hands, all the arrangements were made in record time so not a single day was wasted.

Sitting in the Hanged Man with Varric, Cassie awaited the arrival of the two friends she had chosen to come along with them. Carver had been livid when she told him he had to stay behind, but over his shoulder, the look of relief on their mother’s face had been enough to convince her that she had chosen wisely.

Cassandra was not quite so sure she had chosen her two other companions for the expedition so wisely. Even after the fiasco involving the group of apostates, when her trust had been damaged by their actions, Hawke could not imagine anyone but Anders and Fenris at her side.

Varric had agreed that they needed Anders’ Grey Warden abilities and knowledge, but he had been reluctant to allow Fenris to come as well. He too had been there when the two fought in the midst of their task, and he was less forgiving than Cassandra.

The two men arrived at almost the same time, and from the look on Fenris’s face, he seemed to be considering turning around and going home as soon as he saw Anders ahead of him. Once he locked eyes with Hawke, however, his resolve seemed to melt and he slunk over to the table anyways.

“Thank you for agreeing to this,” Cassandra began. “Anders, I know you don’t relish going down into the Deep Roads, but we will no doubt be grateful for your abilities. And Fenris… You may not be pleased with the circumstances of this expedition, but I value your trust and determination.”

“Maker’s balls, Hawke, you sound like you’re writing their eulogies!” Varric quipped. “May as well go build their funeral pyres now and save yourself the trouble later.”

Anders laughed nervously. “Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I’m a healer, maybe I can prevent the need for any pyres.”

“We can use them for our enemies instead,” Fenris added with a wicked grin.

Varric closed his journal and wiped his quill clean on a blotting cloth, tucking them both safely away in his leather satchel. “Well, I suppose we should go ahead and meet up with my brother. Bartrand isn’t known for his patience, and the sooner we leave, the better.”

 

* * *

 

The Tethras brothers had mapped out their route, and estimated it would take about three days of travel at a moderate pace to reach the entrance into the Deep Roads that they had chosen. Their destination was in the foothills of the Vimmark Mountains, on the northern outskirts of the Planasene Forest, or so Varric had told Hawke. Truthfully, she had never been more than a few hours outside the city in any given direction, so she had no idea what the area was like.

The first day of travel was uneventful, though Hawke could tell a thunderstorm would come in from the west in the next day or so. She did not like the idea of being caught in the open during bad weather, but it would have taken an act of the Maker to convince Bartrand not to proceed with the expedition. So she kept her opinion quiet and distracted herself by talking with her companions as they made camp that evening.

Having reached the easternmost edge of the forest, the group decided to venture a few yards into the tree line and set up there. Fenris was putting up his tent near the very edge of the firelight, and Cassandra walked over to offer him assistance. Though he seemed surprised, he thanked her and the two conversed as they worked.

“So, have you ever seen any darkspawn?” Cassie inquired.

Fenris grunted with exertion as he drove a tent spike into the ground with one blow of his hammer. “Never. Danarius kept me on a short leash, so I did not experience much real battle before I escaped. From what I gathered, they are quite fearsome to behold.”

“At least some of them are,” Hawke replied, thinking of the ogre that had killed Bethany. “But lucky for us, they die just as easy as any man. Just don’t let their blood get inside you and you’re good to go.”

“Their blood?”

“Their entire bodies are infected with the taint,” a new voice interjected. “It can be passed from darkspawn to other living creatures through ingesting their blood or flesh, or if enough gets into an open wound.”

Hawke turned to see Anders leaning against a tree nearby. It seemed he had set up his own tent just a few feet away. “That’s what happened to Aveline’s late husband, Ser Wesley, while we were fleeing from Lothering,” she continued, acknowledging the healer with a nod. “It’s not the kind of death I would wish upon my worst enemy.”

“I see,” Fenris growled, moving closer to Hawke. She found it odd how protective of her he seemed to be getting, even more so when Anders was present. “I will try to be careful when I’m slicing those monsters to ribbons.”

Anders scowled at him, picking up on the underlying threat, and stalked off to find somewhere he would be less of an offense.

“You two are impossible!” Cassandra scolded Fenris as soon as the other man was out of earshot. “I had hoped to foster _some_ kind of camaraderie between you with this expedition, but apparently that was just wishful thinking on my part.”

He snorted and looked away. “ _He_ is the child, as he cannot admit that I have a point.”

“But so does he,” Cassie countered. “You two both know what it’s like to be stuck under the heavy hand of oppression, so why can’t you find some common ground? And don’t give me the ‘but he’s a mage!’ excuse, because if that’s the main reason you don’t like him, then you shouldn’t be talking to me either.”

Fenris opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again, thinking better of it. He sighed and hammered the last tent spike into place before placing his belongings inside. “Would you like help with your own tent?” he offered, changing the subject.

Hawke smiled at him. “I would appreciate that.”

It had grown completely dark by the time they had finished and sat down to eat. The pair sat close to the fire as they ate, trying to ward off the chill with the flames and cups of warm mulled wine. They did not talk much, but the presence of another person was comforting.

Cassandra could feel someone’s eyes on her back periodically, but chose to ignore it until her curiosity got the better of her. She turned to see Anders, seated in the opening of his tent with a thick blanket wrapped around him.

“Why don’t you come sit with us by the fire? It’s much warmer,” Cassie called. She then glanced back at Fenris and muttered, “If you two get in a fight, I’m tying both of you to a tree together until you learnt to play nice.”

“I can’t promise anything,” he grumbled in reply.

Anders seemed a bit suspicious of how cordial Fenris was being, but joined them nonetheless. They finished their meal in relative silence, and before long, the three of them decided to retire to their tents and get some much-needed rest. Hawke’s tent was strategically placed between the two men so she could play peacemaker, should they decide to murder one another in their sleep.

 

* * *

 

Sleep, however, did not come easily to Hawke that night, and she tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity before she drifted off. But the Fade was not kind to her that night, and her old nightmare of Bethany’s death resurfaced for the first time in many weeks. Hawke awoke in a cold sweat, stifling a cry for help. The last thing she wanted was to scare the wits out of everyone around her.

It was then she felt nature calling, and reluctantly untangled herself from her bedroll and blankets so she could relieve herself. The cold air bit into her like hungry wolves as she ventured out into the woods a few yards, and she hurried back to camp when she was done to escape their icy teeth.

Seeing a person silhouetted against the firelight stopped the mage in her tracks. She knew it wasn’t one of the guards Bartrand had hired on, as they had their own fire off to one side of the camp. Whoever it was seemed to sense she was there, as their head craned to one side.

“Hawke?” She breathed a sigh of relief. It was just Anders, though the Maker only knew what he was doing up so late.

“Yes, it’s me,” Cassie walked over to him. “What are you doing out here?”

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “Couldn’t sleep. The closer we get to the Deep Roads, the harder it is for me to relax. Darkspawn nightmares, just one of the many perks of being a Warden.”

“I had a nightmare too,” Cassandra murmured, touching his arm gently. “Maybe we could go for a walk and see if it helps us settle down?”

Anders nodded, and the two retrieved their cloaks from their tents before heading out into the woods. He ambled along, lantern in hand, and Hawke matched his stride. They were quiet for a while until Anders decided to speak.

“What do you see in the elf? I just don’t get why you seem to like him so much.”

Cassie sighed. Maybe this had not been a good idea. “His skills are valuable, and I like keeping him around so I know he’s not off getting into trouble. Actually, that goes for all of our friends.”

“Me included?” Anders laughed, but grew serious again within moments. “But he _despises_ mages! Don’t you fear for your safety when you’re around him?”

“Do _you?_ ” Hawke countered. “I had this conversation with him just a few hours ago, you two have more in common than you’d like to believe, you’re just too stubborn to compromise!”

“Why should I have to compromise? Giving up ground isn’t going to further my cause.”

Hawke made an exasperated noise and stopped, turning to face him. “See what I mean? You two don’t realize how ridiculous you sound when you fight, it really _is_ just like children arguing over a toy.”

“That’s hardly a fair comparison and you know it,” Anders’ eyes narrowed. “Slavery and the oppression of mages are no trivial matters. He is just far too blinded by hatred to see that everyone, even mages, deserves their freedom.”

“And you’re blinded by your obsession with justice!”

Something within Anders snapped, and suddenly he had Hawke pinned to the tree behind her. He kissed her, hard, anger fueling his passion. He broke off the kiss to take a breath, but Cassie grabbed his neck and kissed him back, not realizing just how attracted to him she had been. She had spent a good deal of time helping in his clinic, talking with him, and sharing meals at the Hanged Man, but something about this sudden aggression was making her stomach do somersaults.

Before long, their hands were scrabbling at one another’s clothing, racing to undo laces and buckles and ties so they could get even closer. Anders’ thumb brushed over one of Cassandra’s nipples as he pulled down her breastband and she moaned into his mouth. Hawke didn’t even care that it was so cold her skin prickled with goosebumps, the heat of Anders’ bare skin again hers was worth the chill.

“I want you,” Anders breathed in her ear, pressing closer to her so that Hawke could feed his need trapped between their thighs. “I want you _now_ , and consequences be damned.”

“Consequences be damned,” she gasped, her breath hitching as he pulled down her underclothes and slid into her with one stroke.

A shudder of pleasure tingled down her spine and Cassandra wrapped one leg around his waist, allowing him easier access to her. Anders settled into a slow, steady rhythm after a few thrusts and then began exploring the rest of her body. He nibbled at the crook where her neck and right shoulder met for a few moments before biting down just hard enough to leave a mark.

Hawke moaned and bucked her hips against him, lost in the feeling of his mouth on her neck and his hand on her breast and _oh, Maker,_ how long had it been since she had a man inside her? She had forgotten how it felt, to become one with another person and be enraptured by desire.

All of a sudden, the hand on her breast slid down between their hips and found that one spot that drove her mad with pleasure. Cassandra’s eyes flew open as her orgasm crashed over her like a wave, and she moaned loudly into his mouth when Anders kissed her. The pleasure rippled throughout her entire body until she felt as if she were on fire, fading until Anders’ fingers brought her to climax yet again.

His thrusts were growing more erratic by the second, and Hawke knew his own release was not long in coming. She was half afraid he would finish inside her, but at the last second Anders pulled out and spent his seed on the ground at their feet. He then braced himself against the tree behind her with one arm and stared down at her, gasping for breath.

Hawke reached up and stroked his cheek with her thumb. “What in Andraste’s name was that?” she whispered, guiding his head down so his forehead rested against hers.

“Trouble,” Anders replied, chest still heaving with exertion.

The two of them dressed again in silence, still trying to catch their breath. Anders picked up the discarded lantern and rekindled the flame with a touch of magic. Hawke’s legs nearly gave out when she tried to walk, so they had to wait for a while until she could move unassisted.

She giggled in embarrassment as they headed back to camp. “Sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve done anything sexual that I forgot how noodly it makes me.”

“ _Noodly?_ ”

“Noodly,” Cassie affirmed, nodding solemnly.

Anders burst out laughing and shook his head. “Maker, you’re a mess. I’m a mess. All of this is a mess and we could be dead in three days, but I don’t even care!”

Hawke patted his arm affectionately and nodded again. “I guess we had better get cleaning, then.”

The pair became more subdued as they approached camp, yawning by the time they had reached their tents. “Sleep well, Hawke,” Anders murmured, squeezing her hand before retreating from the cold.

“You too,” she whispered, her breath misting in the air like wisps of smoke.

This was going to be an interesting journey.

 

* * *

 

“Well the damn map said to go this way, and now look what’s happened!” Bartrand’s voice echoed throughout the tunnel. Most of the group flinched, half from the loudness and half from fear that the darkspawn would descend upon them any second.

The expedition party was four days into the Deep Roads, and it seemed that everything that _could_ go wrong _had_ gone wrong. Their camp had been attacked by a pack of deepstalkers the first time they stopped to rest, and the entire next day of travel had been straight through the middle of their hunting grounds. Day three had seen an unexpected surge of darkspawn activity that delayed them for several hours, due to Hawke and her three companions having to beat them to the Void and back.

It was now the end of the fourth day, and they had run into the worst problem yet: up ahead, an entire section of the tunnel at least fifty feet across had collapsed and fallen into the pit of magma below.

Bartrand’s face was redder than the molten rock below as he turned on his crew. “There had better be another way around this!”

One of the navigators shuffled forwards and cleared his throat. “We could try one of the side passages, but they may be too, uh, dangerous for us to travel in.”

Varric and Hawke exchanged a glance and sighed in tandem. “We’ll go see if we can find a way through,” the mage offered.

“Good. And try not to die, I don’t wanna waste all this gold for nothing!” Bartrand stomped past them, muttering to himself.

“Your brother is charming,” Cassie muttered to her friend as they turned to head back to where camp was being set up.

“He’s like a sipping whiskey,” Varric replied. “One little mouthful is tolerable, but if you drink any more you feel like your face is on fire.”

Hawke snorted with laughter, drawing the attention of Fenris and Anders, both busy preparing for whatever might lie ahead.

“That has got to be the most unladylike sound I’ve ever heard you make,” Anders grinned at her as she sat down next to him and started to help rip up old rags for bandages.

“Never said I was a lady,” she replied, sticking out her tongue in a moment of childish pique. Ever since their night of unexpected passion, Cassandra had grown far more comfortable around the healer, though all of their banter was laced with undertones of antagonism. She wondered when the sexual tension between them would come to a head again.

Fenris glanced in their direction from where he sat cleaning his armor and sword. He seemed to have noticed the change in the dynamic between the two mages, but kept his thoughts to himself. “Hawke, would you like me to tend to your armor as well?”

“Sure, I would appreciate that. Hang on a bit,” She methodically undid all the buckles and fastenings, and then handed Fenris her cuirass, bracers, and greaves one at a time. “There’s probably still bits of deepstalker stuck on there from a few days ago.” It felt good to take off the stiff leather for once. They whole group had practically been sleeping in their armor since they first entered the Deep Roads, they were so paranoid. The constant threat of imminent death would do that.

The four friends discussed the cave-in situation at length, deciding that it would be best to get a few hours of rest before they set out into the unknown side passages. Varric retired first, and Fenris called it a night once he returned Hawke’s now-pristine armor. Anders and Cassie were left sitting amidst the circle of tents. The tension between them was almost palpable.

He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You know where that armor would look good?”

“Where?”

“On the floor of my tent with the rest of your clothing.” A shiver ran down Cassandra’s spine as his warmth breath tickled her neck. It was a more blatant invitation than she had expected.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea, with all these people around? We don’t want anyone to be caught unaware by your naked ass,” Hawke smirked at Anders as he drew back. “They might go blind.”

“Chances are it’ll be yours they end up seeing, if I have my way.”

Cassandra glanced around the camp and stood, extending a hand to him. “We’ll see about that, serah.”

Anders gave her a wicked smile and allowed himself to be led into his tent.

 

* * *

 

It was a miracle that Hawke could walk when she awoke several hours later to prepare for the next leg of the journey. Her hips were sore, her mouth bruised from kisses, and her breasts covered in love bites. She would never have guessed that Anders was so voracious a lover.

By some miracle, none of the others seemed to have heard them, so there was no awkwardness as the group prepared for their trek into the side passages of the Deep Roads. Hawke helped Anders mix up a few last-minute potions as Varric spoke with his brother about the plan should something go wrong and the scouting party did not return in three days’ time. Fenris took it upon himself to gather the rest of the supplies they would need, but Cassie could tell he was watching the two mages like a wolf stalking its prey.

“He looks like he wants to eat us or something,” Anders muttered to her, voicing her thoughts for her.

“I wouldn’t mind him nibbling at me a little…” Hawke covered her mouth in horror. _Why_ did she always say these things out loud?

Anders, however, seemed to think she was joking. “Andraste’s ass, can you imagine trying to get _him_ in bed? You’d end up missing some vital organs!”

Cassandra laugh nervously. “Uh, yeah, that would be a… horrible idea.”

Within the hour, the four companions had finished their preparations and made their way towards the side passage that Anders’ maps showed. They hoped it would get them to the same place the main road led, otherwise they would have a very angry Bartrand on their hands. Or they would be very dead.

A sudden shout stopped them in their tracks. “Wait! Please, my boy has gone missing!” It was the merchant that had decided to accompany their expedition, Bodahn Feddic.

“What’s that now?” Hawke asked.

“My boy, Sandal, he’s wandered off somewhere into the tunnels,” Bodahn panted. “I hate to add to your troubles, but please, keep an eye out for him.”

Hawke’s heart ached for him. “I will do my best to bring him back to you unharmed.”

“We’d best move quickly, then,” Varric advised, and the party set off into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

Hawke had never liked small, dark places, and the side passage they had chosen to explore was just that. Aside from the light of their lanterns and the slight illumination from the strange blue crystals growing on the walls, it was pitch black. The darkspawn ranks were thicker there, too, and the entire group was on edge.

“Varric, any idea how far down this path we’ll have to go?” Cassie murmured.

“No idea,” he replied. “Could be a day, could be two weeks. There’s really no telling, since Blondie’s maps only show the first section of this part. The maps mostly cover the main tunnels.”

Anders scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “They’re a bit old, from before the Wardens explored a lot of the smaller areas. Once we find our way to the main road again we’ll be golden, it’s just the in-between part that’s a challenge.”

Cassandra glanced over at Fenris, who hadn’t said a word since they left. “You’ve been very quiet this whole time… Something wrong?”

“Just listening.”

“Listening to what?”

Fenris glanced at her, eyes glinting in the lantern light. “To the caverns. If I am vigilant enough, I may be able to intercept an ambush.” An instant later his sword was drawn, Hawke was pushed to the ground, and the twitching body of a giant spider was impaled upon it over Cassie’s head.

“Like… that…?” She shuddered and scooted backwards as more of the disgusting creatures dropped down from the ceiling.

“ _Exactly_ like that,” Fenris growled, launching into an attack.

Varric’s crossbow sung like a harp as he joined in the fight, and almost as a reflex Anders threw up a magical barrier around Hawke and himself. The two mages had discovered that as long as he kept them protected and healed the others, Cassandra could cast her destructive magic with nigh impunity.

The spider supply seemed to dwindle after a long period of constant battling, but a massive hissing noise announced the arrival of the most monstrous arachnid Hawke had ever had the misfortune of seeing. Its fangs were the length of a man’s arm, and the ground shook as it landed on the cavern floor. The sibilant noise emanating from it grew louder as it saw the corpses of its brethren strewn across the floor, and it charged straight at Fenris.

He was prepared, however, and scored a deep gash in the spider’s abdomen as it struck out at him. Varric made an exasperated noise and reloaded his trusty crossbow Bianca again, aiming for the eyes. A few well-placed fireballs from the mages finally brought the beast down, and Fenris stabbed it through the neck just to make sure it was really dead.

The tired travelers found Bodahn’s wayward son shortly after, covered head to toe in blood and surrounded by the bodies of darkspawn he had apparently killed. The boy gave Cassandra a strange rune before toddling off in the direction they had come, leaving the entire group staring after him in confusion.

They made good time after that despite the darkspawn lurking around every corner. At one point, they ran into a tiny room that looked as if it had been carved out of the living stone by the dwarves of ancient times. It would have been fascinating had it not been inhabited by a very angry ogre. Hawke had nearly lost her nerve upon seeing it, Bethany’s death replaying in her mind, but Varric jarred her out of her reverie in time to kill the beast without anyone getting too badly hurt.

Fenris was limping from the one wound he received, but flat out refused to let Anders near him to administer his healing magic. Cassie bullied him into letting her do it instead, and though he flinched away from her hand at first, his tenseness evaporated once her fingertips brushed his leg.

“Thank you,” he murmured to her as she stood.

Cassandra gave him a small smile, sensing his unspoken affection. “You’re welcome.”

Their respite was short-lived, however. The four companions emerged out into the largest cavern yet, carved out of the stone like the ogre’s room had been. An ear-splitting roar shattered the silence as a blast of scalding air drove them back several feet.

“For the love of Andraste, is that a fucking _dragon?_ ”

Everyone scrambled to attack as they danced around the great scaled monster, courting Death itself as they leapt out of the way of claws and flaming breath alike. It was not long before the group was nearing exhaustion, as a new wave of dragonlings poured out of the surrounding tunnels every few minutes. Cassandra had never drunk so many mana potions so quickly, and she felt like she was going to be sick.

Hawke was raising another vial to her lips when she saw the dragon turn towards her. Before she could even react, the beast lashed out with its wing and knocked her to the ground, breathless.

Then her world exploded in pain, searing white-hot down her back like a river of magma, making her scream so loud that all other sound was drowned out. She felt the weight of the dragon’s claws pressing into her back, and all she could think of was her mother, sobbing in front of the fireplace as Varric told her that she had lost her other daughter, too.

“ _Hawke! No!_ ” A voice shouted over her screams of pain, but she was delirious now, unable to respond or move or think anymore. Pale hair brushed against her cheek as someone stooped to pick her up, carrying her like a babe as they ran for the safety of the tunnel they had come from.

The last thing Hawke remembered before she slipped into darkness was the warmth of Fenris’s arms as he held her.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I would really appreciate some feedback on how you like the story so far! I know it's been pretty similar to the game at first, but soon things will be taking a different turn and I'd like to hear your thoughts.  
> A big thank you to my fantastic beta reader taranovae!

 

* * *

 

“…do you expect me to do? We’re out of options. Either we push on and risk losing her, or turn back now and give up on the expedition.”

The first thing Hawke became aware of as she awoke was the softness of the cloth her right cheek rested on. The second was that her nose itched horribly. Her lips were dry and cracked, her tongue like cotton in her mouth. It took all of her willpower to open her eyes enough to see where she was.

“By the light of the Maker,” Anders gasped as he saw her eyes flicker open. “Fenris! Varric! She’s awake, blessed Andraste, she’s awake!”

Hawke fought with her leaden tongue, trying to form a coherent word, but she could only croak out a feeble little sound. Anders grabbed a cup nearby and gently helped her lift her head so she could take a sip of the water within.

“Hush now, don’t strain too hard,” he murmured. “Just rest.”

Fenris and Varric knelt down beside their wounded friend as Anders tended to her, their faces belying just how serious the situation was.

“What happened?” Cassie rasped after clearing her throat.

Varric rubbed his forehead, sighing. “That damned dragon got its claws into you good.”

“There’s nothing good about it,” Fenris shot him an angry glance before turning his gaze back to Hawke. “It was a close call. Had we been further away from you, you would not be alive right now.”

Cassandra's last memory from the fight flashed through her mind. “You… saved me. You carried me away from the fight.”

Fenris’s usual stoic façade slipped for a moment and his voice broke. “Yes, I… I did. But not soon enough…”

“Fenris…” Anders warned, as if there was something he did not want to tell her.

“What are you not telling me?” Hawke gritted her teeth and tried to push herself up, but fiery pain ripped across her back and she cried out.

Anders flinched and looked down at his hands. “Fenris was able to get you out before the dragon finished the job, but by that time I was almost out of mana, and I was… unable to heal you enough. Your back will be permanently disfigured. And it is no small scar that the dragon’s claws have left behind.”

Hawke felt her heart skip a beat. “How bad is it?” None of her friends would look at her or say anything. “ _How bad is it?_ ”

Fenris’s resolve broke first. “It covers your entire back, from your left shoulder to your right hip. The pain kept you unconscious for almost three days.”

Cassandra felt like she was going to throw up. “Three days,” Her voice shook. “Not only did I get myself hurt, but I’ve delayed the entire expedition!”

Varric spoke up then. “Actually, that’s the one bit of good news we have for you. After we made sure you weren’t in danger of dying, the three of us rested for a while and then slayed the dragon. We’re two days past that down the other side of the main tunnel.”

“Thank the Maker,” Cassie sighed. She could feel herself tiring already, and though her back was numb from whatever Anders had done to help her heal, her whole body ached.

Anders seemed to pick up on this and glanced at the other two men huddled around her. “I think Hawke needs to rest for a while longer. We should leave her be.”

“I will stay and watch over her, should she need anything,” Fenris sat down next to her, legs crossed. Anders looked like he was about to protest, but the elf gave him a stern look. “Go and rest. You’ve barely slept in three days. I will take care of her.”

Once the others had gone, Hawke moved her head a little so she could look up at Fenris. He, too, had bags under his eyes and worry lines etched into his forehead. “Thank you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For saving me. For staying here. For going along on my crazy adventures in the first place.”

Fenris gave her a tired smile. “I told you I would repay you for your help when we first met. I am far more indebted to you than you may think.”

“Not after you saved my life from a bloody dragon! I think that settles any debt between us,” Hawke replied bitterly. “It seems like all I ever do is make more trouble for all of you.”

“You do seem to attract trouble,” Fenris leaned back and surveyed the quiet camp. “But in the three days you were unconscious, this company was… subdued. There was no laughter or joy. It was like someone had extinguished the only lantern in a dark room. Varric noticed it first, when he tried to tell a joke and it fell flat. You are bright and vivacious, and you keep all of us together despite our differences and disagreements. And without you, I would be lost. That is why I saved you, and why I remain at your side.”

Cassandra was dumbfounded. How could she even respond to this?

Fenris seemed to take her silence as a dismissal, however, and shook his head. “Forgive me. I should leave you to your rest. My troubles are not yours to bear.”

“Wait!” Hawke reached out and grabbed his hand, gritting her teeth as pain shot through her left shoulder. Fenris flinched away from her touch at first, but relaxed once he realized her intention. “Please, stay.”

Then Fenris did the unexpected: he leaned down and placed a tender kiss on her forehead. “I will stay.”

Cassie’s breath caught in her throat. She could feel her heart fluttering like a bird trapped in the cage of her ribs. Whatever rapport she had with Anders was nothing compared to this. She felt like a young girl again, pining after the boy on the next farm over, or spending entire evenings stealing kisses from the blacksmith’s daughter when no one was looking.

And so Fenris sat by her side, even long after Hawke had fallen asleep, their fingers entwined in a silent promise.

 

* * *

 

By the time she next awoke, Hawke felt far better. Most of the ache was gone from her body and her mind was clear. Fenris had fallen asleep next to her, shoulders and head slumped forwards. She blushed when she realized they were still holding hands and squeezed his hand a little.

Hawke’s slight movement jolted Fenris awake and he straightened up. He released her hand and rolled his shoulders back, letting out a small moan of relief as the joints popped.

Cassie wished he would make more little noises like that.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she teased. “You didn’t have to stay all night, you know.”

Fenris opened his eyes and gazed down at her. “Truthfully, I did not mean to, but I fell victim to my exhaustion. Anders was not the only one who lost sleep over you.”

“I thought you looked tired,” Hawke responded. “Now… Is it possible for me to stand up, or do we need to wait for the aforementioned healer to check up on me? My neck is sore from lying like this for days.”

“I would hope you would wait for me. I _do_ need to check, considering how serious your wound was,” Anders walked over, noticing that they were awake. “Fenris, if you don’t mind…?”

The other man nodded and stood, casting a last glance at Hawke before heading over to the main campfire.

“Are you feeling any better?” Anders asked as he knelt down beside his patient and started undoing the bandages covering her midriff. “I know three days of inactivity can take its toll on the body.”

Hawke winced as one of the bandages stuck on a spot of dried blood and pulled at her skin. “I am for the most part. I just want to be in a position that isn’t lying down.”

“Can you roll over onto your side at all? I can help you sit up and get these old bandages replaced completely.”

It took some maneuvering, but a few minutes later Cassandra was upright. Anders went about his task, taking care not to cause her any extra pain. She had to cover her chest with a blanket as he unwound the bloodstained cloth from around her, feeling like a plucked chicken about to be cooked.

“So what did you and the elf talk about last night? I could hear a little bit of conversation from my tent.”

Hawke cocked an eyebrow at her friend. “Nosy and possessive today, aren’t we?”

Anders held up his hand defensively. “Not trying to pry, just curious.”

“I thanked him for saving me and he updated me on how things had gone while I was incapacitated. Nothing too important,” She knew that was a blatant lie, but she was not going to betray Fenris’s trust.

“Ah, I thought that might have been the case,” Hawke knew _that_ was a lie as well. “I’m just glad you’re back in the land of the living.” Anders removed the last strip of bandage and paused, surveying her back. His fingers felt cool against her skin when he traced the pattern of the wound, siphoning a small amount of healing magic into it as he went.

Cassandra could tell the general shape of the mark left behind by the dragon. Three long, narrow gashes with ragged edges that were deeper than they appeared. She laughed bitterly. “Now how am I going to find a nice husband? Nobody wants a woman with horrible, disfiguring scars.”

Anders raised his eyebrows. “Are you in the market for a husband? I wouldn’t have pinned you for the type.”

“Maker’s breath, not a chance,” Hawke replied. “I’m too fond of danger for a homestead and children to be viable. Besides, odds are my children would be mages… The gift runs strong in my bloodline.”

“I don’t blame you for avoiding it then,” Anders’ face darkened. “Your father may have been able to raise apostates in Lothering, but it would be bloody impossible in Kirkwall.”

Soon, Hawke was bandaged up again and Anders gave her a clean pair of pants and tunic to wear. The shirt was so large it hung off her thin frame like a set of curtains. She felt like a child playing dress up with her father’s clothes.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t long before the expedition team broke camp and headed further into the Deep Roads. As they descended into the older sections, the atmosphere became heavier and more unnerving with each passing hour. All of them were on edge, Hawke especially, as she knew that in her present physical state she was a serious liability.

“How are you doing?” The sudden noise almost made Cassie jump out of her skin.

“Anders, by the Maker, are you trying to scare me to death?” she scolded.

“I apologize, I suppose I should have been a bit quieter, considering present circumstances,” Anders glanced around the dim caverns. “Hang on, what’s that up ahead?”

Cassandra looked up to where he pointed. There was a patch on the tunnel ceiling that emitted an eerie red light. It looked similar to the blue crystals they had seen in the upper sections, only sicklier.

“I have no idea,” she murmured to Anders. “I wonder if the others have noticed yet.”

“Oh, we’ve noticed,” The appearance of Varric next to them made Hawke jump again. “Seems like Bartrand is the only one of us who isn’t pissing himself in fear.”

Fenris dropped back a few feet to comment. “Bartrand and myself. I will admit, this place is… odd, but I am not afraid of it.”

“Congratulations, Broody, you’ve got more balls than the rest of us combined then,” Varric retorted. His attempt to lighten the mood did not last long, however, as Bartrand abruptly called a halt.

The four companions hurried to the front of the group to see what was wrong, as it had not been a full day of travel yet.

“Might we have an explanation for this sudden stop, brother?” Varric’s polite tone was noticeably strained.

“Ah, good, I was just about to come find you,” Bartrand replied, surveying the maps in his hands. “I want you four to scout ahead and clear out whatever monsters might be lurking there. This section of the Deep Roads isn’t very well mapped, so the safer we are, the better.”

“ _Wonderful_ ,” Fenris grumbled just loud enough for Hawke and friends to hear. He had made his distaste towards Varric’s brother apparent quite soon after they departed, and he despised the way Bartrand ordered them all around.

“We’ll scout ahead as far as we can and send someone back to let you know whenever we think you can move ahead for a while,” Hawke acquiesced and then led her group to get ready. Once they were out of earshot, she spoke again. “Don’t worry, Fenris, once we get back to the surface and Bartrand gives us our cut, you can punch his lights out.”

Varric chuckled quietly at the idea. “I would pay good coin to see that!”

That brief moment of levity faded quickly, as the four friends were soon hacking their way through the enemies that materialized out of the darkness to strike at them further into the caverns. The deeper they descended, the more clusters of ominous red crystals appeared in their path.

Every few hundred feet, one of the four would run back to where Bartrand and the rest of the caravan was waiting, telling them that it was safe to move ahead for now. Every time Hawke tried to volunteer, however, one of the men would step in and insist that she needed to stay with the main scouting party, since she was still recovering from her wound. The polite concern was getting tiring, although she knew they had a point.

The party had almost given up for the day when Cassandra spotted something out of the ordinary to the right side of the large room they had just cleared of darkspawn. “Is that a door up there? I haven’t seen a functional door since before we left the last section. It looks like it’s still sealed shut, too.”

Varric scratched his head and pulled out the maps from his bag. “Well, we’re certainly somewhere in the general area of where the place is supposed to be. Somebody go get Bartrand and we can take a closer look.”

Anders volunteered to go this time, and the others sat down to clean up and rest before another potential fight. It did not take long for their messenger to return with Bartrand, who seemed quite excited over the news.

After a brief conversation, Varric and Hawke led the way up the flight of stairs that led to the mysterious door. Bartrand hung back behind the four others as they inspected the carved stone slab. Hawke ran her hand along what looked like a seam between one side of the door and the wall. Suddenly it sprung open with a loud screech of stone on stone, almost sending her sprawling.

“Be ready,” Fenris growled. “Anything could be waiting for us in here.”

Hawke felt the air around her turn heavy with power as they ascended another flight of stairs carved out of the living rock. In the center of the large room they found themselves lay a single pedestal with a strange object lying on top of it.

“You see what I’m seeing?” Varric spoke for them all as they reached the top and formed an arc around the pedestal.

The object in front of them was composed of two figures entwined by what appeared to be a dragon’s tail, carved out of stone with red veins running through it. Anders and Hawke glanced at one another, sensing the powerful aura emanating from it.

“It’s definitely magic. And not the good kind,” said Anders, eyebrows knitting together in a scowl.

Cassandra’s reaction was different. She reached out for the carved idol and picked it up. The surge of energy that seared up her arm made her drop it, and had Varric not been paying close attention, it would have shattered on the floor.

“I think it’s made of lyrium,” she gasped, shaking her tingling hand. “Maker’s breath, that’s incredible.”

Varric turned and gave the idol an expert toss, landing it right in the waiting hands of his brother down by the door. Bartrand gave the item a quick evaluation and nodded. “You could be right. An excellent find.”

“Not bad!” Varric grinned. “We’ll take a look further in, see if there’s anything else.”

As the four companions turned to inspect the rest of the room, the door began to screech shut behind them. They whipped around to see Bartrand closing it from the outside. Fenris leapt to action first, sprinting down the stairs as fast as he could, but the door was sealed shut again before he even got there.

Varric was close behind, and he yelled through the wall at his brother, “Bartrand, what in Andraste’s name are you doing? Locking us in here so you can steal the profits for yourself?”

“You always did notice everything, Varric.”

“Are you _joking?_ You’re going to screw over your own brother for a lousy idol?”

“It’s not just the idol,” Bartrand’s voice was emotionless and flat. “The location of this thaig alone is worth a fortune, and I’m not splitting that three ways.”

“Damn it all, _let us out!_ ” Varric’s usual laid-back demeanor was gone, replaced by something like a frantic animal cornered in a trap.

“Sorry, brother.”

“Bartrand!” Varric slammed his fists against the door. “ _Bartrand!_ ”

But it was too late. His brother was gone, and they were now standing in their tomb.

Hawke stood at the top of the stairs, frozen in place. A million thoughts were racing through her head. Her fingers twitched instinctively as she tried to gather her mana to form a fireball, but nothing happened. She looked down at her hand in horror.

“Anders…!”

“I just noticed it too,” he responded through gritted teeth. “We can’t use magic in this room. And not even Fenris is strong enough to break down that door. We’re doomed.”

Fenris and Varric rejoined the two mages, and the four of them slumped down against the pedestal. Varric was still frothing with rage, and he was muttering threats under his breath. “I will find that son of a bitch – sorry Mother – and I will _kill him_.”

Hawke tried to keep a level head so none of the others would panic. “We should just rest for a while. Then we can look for a way out. There has to be another way to the surface from here.”

The others all agreed and exhaustion claimed them within minutes, but Cassandra was unable to sleep. Without Anders’ or her own healing magic, the wound on her back was sore and inflamed from fighting all day. She took care not to disturb the others as she stood and began pacing on the other side of the room, trying to ignore the ache creeping through her body. She half considered waking Fenris to ask for a health potion, but she knew the others were even more tired since they had been running back and forth all day to Bartrand and the others.

Hawke sighed and returned to where the others were propped up against the stone dais in the middle of the room. This entire expedition had gone haywire the moment they stepped foot outside of Kirkwall. She sat down between Fenris and Anders, careful not to bump into them or slam her back against the stone as she did so.

_Perhaps I should just keep watch_ , she thought to herself. And so she did.

 

* * *

 

“Bloody flames! What _were_ those things?” Varric panted, slumping back against a boulder.

“ _Annoying_ ,” Fenris growled, inspecting a new scratch on his blade from the stone bodies of the strange creatures they had just defeated.

“I second that,” Anders agreed, wincing as he pulled a small shard of rock out of his shoulder and healed the wound.

Hawke had not slept at all in the hours her friends had been resting. Once they all awoke, their combined efforts eventually produced a potential way out of their predicament: another door at the back of the idol chamber, almost seamlessly cut from the stone. The path had been thick with enemies so far, and these new additions proved to be formidable foes. Cassandra prayed to the Maker that Anders would not run out of mana trying to fight and keep her healed at the same time.

After defeating one particularly large group of the rock creatures, a larger one rose up and reformed from the detritus left behind. The four friends readied for battle once again, but it did not attack.

“Enough,” The voice that emanated from it was deep and gravelly, like stone grating on stone. “I would not see more of these creatures harmed without need.”

Hawke crossed her arms over her chest. “Well they didn’t exactly lay out the welcome mat for us.”

“They will not attack you further, without my permission.” The stone entity went on to explain that these strange beings were called the profane, ancient creatures that had been feeding off the lyrium for so long that their hunger was the only thing left.

“And you’re not one of them?” Cassie asked, suspicious.

“I am… a visitor.”

“ _Demon_ ,” Fenris spat under his breath.

“I would not see my feast end. If you promise to aid me, I will give you the key to the door that leads out of these caverns and up to the surface. Without my help, you will die here.” The demon’s offer was tempting, but Hawke could almost feel Fenris and Anders bristling at the notion behind her.

“Don’t do it. Demons will trip you up every time,” Anders warned.

“We don’t have much choice,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder before turning her gaze to the demon once more. “Very well. What is it that you require?”

The demon relayed its information, and the party set off. Fenris sulked at the back of the group, but Anders was livid. “What part of ‘demon’ did you not understand?”

Cassandra glared at him. “You don’t think I actually intend to just let it go after it gives us the key, do you? That monster is toast the moment he gives us what we want.”

“Hawke’s got a point, Blondie,” Varric chimed in.

A strange rumbling noise as they entered a much larger cavern forestalled any response. The group walked up to the side of one of the four pillars supporting the ceiling and stopped, mystified by the size of the place.

“This is the vault. The dwarves would have brought their…” Varric trailed off as something behind them began to move, pieces of stone clacking together sharply. The four of them turned and saw an enormous version of the profane towering above them. “Oh, that can’t be good.”

The creature suddenly vanished and reappeared in a flash of red light in the center of the room, roaring as it did. The well-oiled machine of the four fighter’s strategy ticked into overdrive as they battled the great monster, dodging chunks of rocks and strange energy beams attacks as they chipped away at it. At one point, Fenris almost lost an arm when the stone creature unleashed a barrage of red light, vaporizing everything in its path that was not stone. It was the first time Hawke had ever seen him so afraid he was trembling.

Finally, after what felt like hours of running around in circles, Hawke saw an opening when the enemy stumbled, and thrust the bladed end of her staff up into the central core of the energy holding it together. The monster exploded into a million shards of rock, and Hawke and Anders had to cover everyone with barrier spells so they would not be shredded to pieces.

“The rock wraiths are supposed to be dwarven legends. They’re not supposed to be real!” Varric shook his head as they proceeded towards the other end of the cavern. The glint of gold up ahead caught his eye and he whistled. “Looks like we have something to take back after all.”

“That is not yours!” The demon materialized behind them. “Take only the key and be gone!”

Cassandra glanced over at Varric. “You mind?”

“Way ahead of you,” He pulled out his crossbow and put an ear to it, as if trying to hear something very quiet. “Bianca says, ‘The treasure is ours.’”

Before the demon could even react, a crossbow bolt pierced it straight through the core and its borrowed stone body crashed to the ground, lifeless.

“Let’s collect the best pieces we can carry and then get out of here. I’ve been below ground long enough to know I never want to come back,” Everyone agreed with Varric and began loading objects into their bags.

Hawke was drawn to one item in particular, a delicate silver chain with a gemstone pendant hung on it, along with two matching earrings. The stones were pale blue, almost the same color as her eyes. She stashed them in her bag, along with several handfuls of gold coins and the odd piece of tableware.

Soon, the four friends were done, weighed down by their treasures, and struck out through the door the demon’s key had unlocked for them.

“How long will it take us to get back topside?” Cassie asked Varric.

“If we’re unlucky, a week.”

She hoped it would be sooner. Hawke had a bone to pick with a certain backstabbing dwarf, and a worried mother to return to.


End file.
